Find me in the River
by Dipenates
Summary: For Nick and Greg to get it together, Nick has to acknowledge some things about himself that he's been hiding for years. When he starts to come out to colleagues and family, a number of lives are affected. Nick/Greg
1. Cracked and dry

**Chapter 1: Cracked and Dry **

**Warnings: **Contains violence and some swearing, as well as eventually being slash.

**Author's note: **This story is set in the same universe as multi-chapter fic "Passing Judgment on my Life" and one-shot "Fearfully and Wonderfully Made", although it can stand completely alone.

_****************************_

Even though they hadn't discussed Nick's sexual orientation in the couple of months since the Planned Parenthood case, it was nice to have someone at work that didn't ask about dates and assume they would be with women. Nick didn't really notice how much he had come to rely on Greg's silent solidarity until the gay bashing outside Club Garrarufa.

Greg had gone out with Warrick to the scene; to photograph the blood and chaos in the alley, and to ask Garrarufa's patrons and staff if they had seen anything of the brutal beating. He'd come back with his face carefully blank and breezed straight past Nick, who was standing in the corridor talking to Archie, without even acknowledging his presence.

"So," Archie was saying, "The tapes have finally arrived from the surveillance cameras at the lot and I'm just about to start processing them. Want me to beep you when anything pops?"

Nick grunted, mind already skittering away from his investigation of organised car theft at one of Las Vegas' most upscale dealers, and towards whatever was wrong with Greg.

It used to be that Nick would go for breakfast with the team after shift and talk mostly to Warrick about sports. They would watch the game together, and if that wasn't a possibility then they would exchange text messages commenting on plays and the color commentary. After a bad shift, as long as neither of them was stinking too badly of decomp, they would go to a bar and suck down beers and play pool.

In the last couple of months, Nick had still talked to Warrick at team breakfasts but he'd started breakfasting with Greg on the days that the whole night shift didn't drift out to a nearby diner. They'd started out talking mostly about sports and work and the benefits of pickups versus sports cars. Now they talked about politics and books they had read, and things about each other's families that included funny stories about nieces and nephews, but went beyond that, too.

At the most recent team breakfast Nick had caught himself handing Greg half a wrapper of brown sugar, because that's what Greg added to diner coffee. Greg, in return, was passing him the extra two packages of syrup that he always poured on pancakes when he had bacon. Nick realised that he and Greg had somehow become friends who knew that kind of thing about each other.

Catherine had snorted and told them both that they needed to eat way less diner food, but Warrick had looked between the two of them with a questioning expression on his face and grabbed his bag, throwing some bills on the table to cover his breakfast.

Things between Nick and Warrick hadn't been quite right since that and Nick was hoping that he hadn't said something to Greg at the scene. He almost laughed out loud at the prospect of being in the middle of something that reminded him of his sisters' sixth grade friend dramas, but the thought of losing a friend wasn't really funny at all.

Nick found Greg in the breakroom, drinking a can of Coke with his sneakered feet propped up on the coffee table.

"Everything go OK at Garrarufa, man?"

"Fine." Greg's voice was tight and Nick realised that he was really, properly angry.

Nick sat down next to him. "Are you sure? Because you sound pretty pissed."

The muscle in Greg's jaw was twitching. "I just need a minute to feel the rage and then I'll be back to being the unflappable CSI-in-waiting, OK?"

"Not OK." Nick shook his head. "Wouldn't venting work better than you getting an ulcer in ten years time?"

Greg looked up at him. "You really want to know? Fine! I just watched Warrick's lip curl at Garrarufa, at the people who own Garrarufa, and at the people who go to Garrarufa. I saw him interview a bunch of witnesses from a good two feet away so he didn't get any gay cooties on him, and roll his eyes when one of the witnesses broke down and had to be comforted by his friends. Apparently seeing half a gay bashing brought back memories of his own boyfriend's beaten corpse back home in Pahrump. Probably because the guy was a hysterical, swishy queen, right?"

Nick ran both hands through his hair. "Warrick? Are you sure?"

Greg snorted. "Are you kidding me? Because Warrick's the founder member of the Vegas chapter of PFLAG?"

"I've never had the slightest notion that Warrick has a problem with gay people." Nick racked his brain for a case that might have revealed Warrick's true thoughts.

"Yeah, Warrick is definitely a straight ally. That's why you were so super-comfortable coming out to him." Greg's tone was snide.

"Hey, that's not fair."

Greg finished his Coke. "What's not fair about it? You've never told him you're gay, right."

Nick cast an anxious glance at the breakroom door.

"Oh, don't worry," said Greg, standing up. "Your secret is safe. No one would ever guess in a thousand years that you bat for my team."

* * *

Half an hour before shift was due to end, Greg turned up in the AV Lab with some Blue Hawaiian coffee for Archie and Nick. Acknowledging it for the olive branch that it was, Nick smiled at Greg as he took his cup.

"Are we still doing breakfast later?" Nick's voice was hopeful.

"Sure." Greg smiled down at him, and there was something in the exchange that made Archie look across sharply from the surveillance footage he was working on.

_Beep. _Nick looked down at his beeper. "I'm getting paged to the interview room. Catch you guys later?"

He left the room without noticing that Archie was still staring at Greg.

"Something you want to say, dude?" Greg had his chin up, which Archie knew from the nights that Greg ended up crashed out drunk on his sofa wasn't always a good thing.

Archie grinned. "You used to tell me about your dating adventures, Sanders. Now you're moving over to team CSI are you forgetting that I have a need for lab news too?"

Greg shook his head. "There is no news. Nick and I are just friends."

"Whatever you say, man." Archie turned back to the AV controls on his bench.

"Archie, listen." Greg paused, trying to decide how to frame this to get away with giving as little information as possible. Tried to keep the desperation out of his voice.

"I like Nick as more than a friend, but I don't want to scare him off and ruin our friendship. He's been through a lot in the last few years and I don't want to remind him of Nigel Crane."

The smile had left Archie's face at the mention of Nick's stalker.

He lightly punched Greg's shoulder. "Your secret is safe with me. Just remember Andrew and your habit of falling for guys that aren't in a place to be available, OK? You're a messy drunk, Sanders, and I'm not sure how much unrequited love stuff I can bear, even if you do pour me scotch while you tell me about it."

* * *

Eating breakfast opposite Nick in their diner of choice, Greg felt more frustrated than he'd ever been in his life. Greg was afraid that the night Nick came out to him had been the high water mark, and that Nick was never going to be more comfortable with his sexuality than that.

He tried to pretend to himself that he only cared for Nick's sake but, actually, he'd wanted Nick on and off since the moment he saw him. If not for the fact that Nick was so far in the closet he was halfway to Narnia, it might have been interesting to see if their mild flirtation had gone anywhere.

"I saw the tapes," Nick said.

"The tapes?"

"Of the beating outside Garrarufa. They really went to town on that guy. He was on his knees, begging for his life and they hit him over and over and over again." Nick's voice was empty.

Greg frowned. "Where did you see the tapes?"

"Archie was trying to get a clear shot of their faces when I arrived in the AV lab to go over my car lot footage." Nick shook his head.

"My first year on the job in Dallas we had this gay bashing, a guy called David McMartin. The guy survived but only just and his face looked like hamburger when they'd finished hitting it with rebar. The 911 call was phoned in by his boyfriend, who saw the whole thing." Nick clenched his hands.

Greg ran a finger over one of Nick's fists.

"My Daddy used to have these poker games with other Dallas law and order bigwigs, and they were all in his den one Saturday night when I had to go past the ranch to drop off something I'd picked up for Momma in town." Nick's voice was bitter.

"I went down to the den to say 'hi' but I didn't go in because I could hear them through the door. They were listening to that 911 call and laughing their asses off. I thought Cisco was going to be sick he was laughing so hard. And then he stopped and said 'Awww, did someone hurt your wickle boyfriend.' And then they all laughed some more."

"Jesus, Nick." Greg was struggling to keep the abject horror off his face and hoped he was succeeding, for Nick's sake. _Homophobic old prick, _he thought.

"That was the moment that I knew that I had to get out of there. That it wasn't going to end."

Greg frowned again. "That what wasn't going to end?"

Nick took a deep breath. "I've been thinking about this a lot these past few months." He looked at Greg, and then his eyes slid away as though he couldn't bear to see Greg's reaction to what he was about to say.

"My Daddy was very – exacting. There were lots of ways that my choices didn't please him and I wasn't a good ol' boy like Bill Jr and Alex. They both got married their first year on the job and Bill III and Alexander Jr. appeared in short order."

Nick's was staring out the diner window at the heat haze shimmering off the blacktop. "When I was a teenager I wanted to be a profiler, like my sister Annie eventually became, but my Daddy said that was sissy. There wasn't a week that went by when one or other of my choices wasn't sissy."

He turned eyes full of misery to Greg. "And so – I've been thinking – that he's known all along. What I am, I mean."

Greg was quiet for a moment. "Nick, sorry if I'm being really dumb here, but isn't that a good thing? I mean, even if he isn't exactly happy about it, doesn't the fact that he knows mean you don't have to hide it?"

Nick laughed, mirthlessly. "In my Daddy's universe, Momma was responsible for raising us right with some disciplinary backup from him." He lowered his voice, almost to a whisper. "I'm worried that if I confirm his suspicions she'll pay for that."

Greg raised his eyebrows. "You think he'll hurt her?"

Nick shook his head. "I don't know."

Greg wrapped his fingers round Nick's hand. He didn't pull away. "Did your dad hit your mom when you were growing up?"

Nick let out a sigh. "I truly don't know. My Daddy has a fearsome temper but I never saw him lay a hand on Momma. Of course, it was a big house."

Greg took a breath and let it out slowly, trying to dispel the sinking feeling in his stomach. "Nicky, when you say that your dad provided 'disciplinary backup', do you mean that he hit you?"

Nick nodded; a short, jerky nod.

"Like a slap?"

Nick was quiet and unmoving.

"Like a punch?"

The jerky nod again.

"Like with his belt?"

This time when Nick nodded, Greg realised that his eyes were bright with tears.

Pulling out his wallet, Greg put enough bills on the table to cover their coffee and pancakes. "Nicky, I think we should go."

* * *

Nick said nothing on the drive back to Greg's apartment; nothing when Greg installed him on the navy sofa; and nothing when Greg passed him a beer. It wasn't until Greg sat down sideways on the sofa beside him and ran his hand down Nick's back that Nick eventually spoke.

"Greg, I don't want you to get the wrong idea about him. We had a complicated relationship."

Greg rejected the first five answers that sprang to his lips, which were full of words that he didn't think Nick would appreciate anyone using about his family.

"It's not really that complicated. He hit you because he didn't like something about you. That's why people hit each other." Greg's hand was still moving over Nick's back in long, smooth strokes.

"It wasn't like that, man. He thought he was raising me right."

Greg took that in, thought for a minute. "Nick, do you remember the first time he hit you with a belt?"

Nick drew a shuddering breath. "Yeah. It was the summer before I went into sixth grade. Our church had a summer camp and we had to choose activities. My Daddy really wanted me to go out for this rodeo skills activity, but I just wanted to go trail riding with Annie and Andrea."

Something squeezed around Greg's heart. "How is trail riding wrong? Did he take a belt to Annie?"

"No way," Nick said. "He would never hit a woman."

Greg was quiet for a moment. "Nicky, at age 11 and 12 both you and Annie were _children_; children who sound like the freaking Waltons. I could almost, _almost _understand your dad belting you in sheer terror if you were a sixteen year old gangbanger who kept violating parole, but that wasn't it."

"That kind of punishment wasn't what I would choose for my own kids, if I had any." Nick sounded like he was forcing the words out past a throat full of gravel. Greg slid one arm across Nick's shoulders.

"Any parent would be blessed by a child like you, Nicky." Greg couldn't get over the idea of someone living at close quarters with Nick and wanting to make him feel pain instead of loved with all of their heart. "You're the most decent, kind, brave person I've ever met."

"I'm a liar." Nick's voice was harsh.

"A liar?"

"Yeah. I pretend that I date women and want women but really I don't."

Greg stroked Nick's knee, and tried not to notice how warm his leg was through his jeans. "Nicky, that doesn't make you a liar. It makes you human for taking on board the messages you've had your whole life about whom people should love and be loved by."

Nick shot Greg a look. "You're truly telling me that you're not annoyed by the fact that I didn't go and confront Warrick, waving a rainbow flag?"

Greg made an impatient noise. "Warrick annoyed me, not you. If I'm honest, I didn't understand why your family's opinion mattered so much to you. I do now."

He wanted to know if Nick could get past this, but he couldn't find any way to phrase it that didn't sound completely insensitive.

"I've been thinking about this a lot," Nick was saying. "I can't live my life like this. I'm gay. I'm scared of what that means for my life, but I'm still gay. I need to be me. Even if I can't ever discuss it with my family, I need to start somewhere with being who I really am."

Greg looked at him. "We could go to Garrarufa tonight? We both have it off and you could dip your toe in the culture?"

Nick raised his eyebrows. "Sure, Greggo, and then maybe we could swing past a bathhouse."

Greg grinned. "It's not that big a deal. There'll be a mixed crowd tonight after last night. People always want to go down and show their support for the whole LGBT community after a gaybashing."

Nick's stomach flipped. "OK."

* * *

Propped against the bar, beer in hand, Nick surveyed the club as the pounding beat tickled him somewhere just south of his stomach. Greg was beside him with his back to the bar, leaning on both elbows. His posture drew Nick's eye down over the flat panel of stomach under Greg's tight shirt to the jeans that were skimming his hips. Nick nearly licked his lips. Greg looked hot.

The crowd was heaving already and Nick could almost taste the anticipation in the room as the DJ mixed in a favourite tune and the atmosphere ratcheted up a couple of notches. Arms started to snake above bobbing heads and he could see a few couples who were moving as one, hips mashed together, and hands sliding over exposed flesh.

He grinned at Greg who leaned his head towards Nick. "Having a good time?"

"Yeah."

Greg smiled at him, remembering the first time he'd gone to a gay club in San Francisco and how much he'd felt like he really belonged, in a way that he hadn't anywhere else even in that most gay friendly of cities. He felt like he was showing Nick a new world; playing Beatrice to Nick's Dante.

Out of the throng of bodies a tall, blond man appeared. Striding purposefully up to Greg he put one hand on Greg's hip and then slid his other hand up the inside of Greg's thigh. Laughing, Greg grabbed his wrist before his hand reached its destination.

"Long time no see, Sanders," the man said.

"I've been busy, Wilkie." Nick felt irrationally pleased that Greg wasn't returning any of the guy's touches.

"Too busy for this?" The man waved his hand at the dancefloor. "You're like a fixture in this place."

Greg nodded his head at Nick. "James Wilkes, this is Nick Stokes." He nodded back towards James. "Nick Stokes, this is James Wilkes."

James gave Nick a quick up-and-down and raised one eyebrow meaningfully at Greg. "I see that you _have _been busy."

"Nicky's a good friend," Greg's said, without emphasis.

Nick realised in one moment of stillness in the midst of that shouted conversation that he wanted to be more, and was half disappointed that Greg didn't respond to James's questioning look. He would have liked to hear Greg explain exactly what they were to each other. He would have liked to know where they were going.


	2. Didn't count on suffering

**Chapter 2: Didn't count on suffering**

Greg was no slouch in the studying department, but even he admired the dedication that Nick showed to exploring his identity. They were spending more and more time at each other's apartments, and Nick's was now littered with books about the history of the gay rights movement and copies of _Out _and _The Advocate_.

They'd watched _Harvey Milk _together and cried when Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone got gunned down by Dan White, although Nick got really quiet during the part where Harvey Milk demanded that his fellow activists call their families and come out. They had also been back to Garrarufa a few times, and some of Vegas's gay bars, and Greg had helped him pick out some clothes that were a little bit more scene-y.

Greg noticed that however enthusiastically Nick had embraced the politics, in his own apartment at least, the whole being-with-other-men part seemed to be taking longer to take root. He had shown no interest in the erotica that Greg had lent him and all of the many men who approached Nick in Garrarufa or the bars they'd been in had received his politest Texas brush-off.

Greg held the faintest hope that Nick's reticence was because he was interested in him, but Nick was being completely inscrutable on that point. They were existing, therefore, in a state of perfect tension; in which Greg was reluctant to make a move in case he lost someone who was becoming one of the best friends he'd ever had.

"Earth to Greggo!" Catherine interrupted his thoughts with the insistence of a woman holding a heavy pile of evidence that she was perilously close to dropping.

Greg took the box out of her hands and huffed at its unexpected weight. "Geez, what's in this?"

"A whole section of flooring that seemed to be at the epicentre of the fire. They've put in props to hold up the ceiling, but the Fire Marshall was really doubtful that it was going to hold that well, so we decided to cut out a few square feet to analyse."

"Didn't you get photos?"

Catherine rolled her eyes. "Of course. We've taken swabs as well and captured airborne particulates, but it's best to have access to the surface if possible."

"Anything for me?"

"The garage didn't burn and nor did a small shed at the back of the garden, so we've lifted all of the accelerants in both locations. We'll be checking anything likely for prints but I'll keep you posted on DNA." Catherine tucked her hair behind her ears. "Of course, there'll be DNA samples from the two bodies. It's almost definitely the wife and child."

"No problem. I'm dealing with the murder at the Sands that Grissom is leading on and that has brought with it a smorgasbord of DNA evidence, but I'll slot your stuff in when you have it."

Catherine nodded absently, already thinking about processing the evidence from the fire.

* * *

The Sands murder DNA results identified several possible suspects and Greg decided, after paging Grissom twice, that he should probably take them directly to the shift supervisor. He found Grissom watching the survivor of the house fire being interviewed by Brass and Nick.

Greg jerked his head in the direction of the two-way mirror. "You like him for it."

Grissom took the sheet of results out of Greg's hands. "I don't. But we do need to know who thought he and his family deserved to lose their house, and possibly to die in it."

In the interrogation room, Brass was asking about the wife's movements; how she normally spent her days. He got an answer back about childcare arrangements and dry cleaners and then the guy's voice cracked and he started to cry.

"Oh my God, Lauren. I didn't tell her I loved her before I left for work." Greg watched through the two-way, transfixed.

"I didn't say it enough. I'll never live with myself knowing that I could have told her more. If she spent even a second of today not believing that she was my whole world then I can't stand it. My whole life was that woman." He burst into sobs that were so racking they obscured all the rest of his words. Disconsolate with grief, he slid from his chair to the floor and wrapped his arms around himself.

On the other side of the wall, Greg shivered.

* * *

Watching Nick cook was one of the principal pleasures of Greg's life. Through some alchemy, chopping and dicing and sautéing removed the tension from Nick's features and rendered his face as open and innocent as a child's.

Greg sat at Nick's kitchen table and sipped his glass of wine as Nick put the finishing touches to plates of spaghetti and meatballs. Neither of them had a wide repertoire of dishes they could cook well enough to serve dinner guests, but Greg loved Nick's meatballs.

There was something cosily domestic about the time they spent together. They could step round each other effortlessly in the kitchen now. He knew where the glasses and plates and ice cream were at Nick's. He knew how the row of remotes on Nick's coffee table worked his stack of AV equipment. He knew where the blankets were.

All of this excited and scared him in equal measure. The fact that Nick didn't let people in was a given, and he felt like he'd been given a key to a rare and exotic walled garden. The scary part was that they seemed to be skipping stages in their relationship without ever discussing any of it.

Nick put the plate in front of him with a flourish and tossed the tea towel he had been holding the hot plates with over his shoulder. Sitting down, he picked up his fork and speared a meatball, wrapping spaghetti around it. He had just put the fork in his mouth when Greg spoke.

"Where are we going with this?"

Nick froze for a fraction of a second, before sucking the trailing spaghetti into his mouth. "Going with what?"

"This." Greg waved his fork in a gesture that encompassed the entire table, with its neat place settings and pitcher of ice water.

"Dinner?" Nick's voice was half hopeful, as if Greg would agree that _yes, dinner_ was the thorny issue he wanted to resolve.

Greg laid down his fork and wished he'd thought of a better way to raise this. Nick looked so unhappy, as if his favourite toy was about to be taken away from him.

"I saw some of the interview that you and Brass did with the survivor from the arson."

Nick blinked as the conversation jumped tracks. "Jason Salinger?"

"I had to take Griss some results and he was watching the interview. There was just something about the way he was talking about his wife that made me realise that we can't go on like this. Or rather, " Greg corrected himself, "that I can't go on like this."

Nick bit his lip. "I understand if you want to get back in the game. I know I'm probably cramping your style following you around like some kind of half-trained gun dog."

Greg shook his head in frustration. "I'm not saying this right. What I mean is that the interview today scared me. At first I thought it was scaring me because I didn't want to feel the world of hurt that Jason Salinger is experiencing tonight."

Nick nodded his understanding.

"But then, I realised that wasn't it. What I'm actually scared of is never feeling that strongly about anyone; of never feeling enough of that extraordinary, _ordinary_ love that leaves you open to feeling that much pain."

Greg paused for a beat on the edge of the confession that could smash their friendship into a million pieces. "Nicky, I think I'm falling in love with you. And I can't keep doing what we're doing without knowing if that means anything."

Nick sat like a statue for a few painful seconds, and it wasn't until he started to cry miserable tears that Greg realised that the response wasn't going to be the one he was hoping for.

"I have to go," Greg said, without looking at Nick, and practically bolted for the apartment door.

* * *

Greg was tossing back his first scotch when he felt a warm body slide onto the stool next to him at the bar.

"Can I have a two Glenlivets?" the man next to him asked the barman, and Greg was about to turn around and tell him he was wasting his time when he realised it was James Wilkes.

"Of all the gin joints," Greg said, waving his glass at James. Even to his own ears his voice sounded brittle.

James raised an eyebrow. "And why, might I ask, are you climbing into that whisky bottle with such fearsome determination?" He looked around him. "Where is Captain Beefcake?"

* * *

Nick cried until his throat hurt and his eyes were so puffy he could barely see through them. He swung wildly between anger that Greg had pushed so hard at a door that he was afraid to open and a gritty misery that his friendship with Greg was surely over. His entire body ached and he wanted to sleep for a year.

He realised how isolated he was; how the bond he was forging with Greg had supplanted other relationships. There was literally no one he knew who had any inkling that he and Greg might be getting romantically involved. There was no one he could discuss this with.

He'd thought about Warrick, but Warrick was good at the get-back-on-the-horse platitudes and drinking part of breakups. He wasn't good with the immediate aftermath or the wallowing phase. Talking this over with Warrick would also involve making several revelations that he wasn't sure he could handle the reaction to in his fragile state. He'd also considered Sara, but something in him couldn't rely on Sara being kind instead of brisk, and she would have tens of questions also.

He leaned back on the sofa and felt completely, terribly alone.

* * *

"You're kidding?" Greg had come to the end of his story and James looked as incredulous as Greg had ever seen him.

Greg shook his head. "No. I just left."

James signalled for two more whiskies. "So, he comes out to you a few months ago? Things are going so-far-so-cute-I-could-die, and some grieving widower makes you decide to blow all of this slow and patient work out of the water with a grand, romantic ultimatum?"

Greg sighed. "That about sums it up."

James sipped his drink. "You are such a stupid fucker."

"Hey!"

"Oh, please." James's face was wrinkled with scorn. "It's beyond ridiculous to fall for a boy in the closet but hey, the heart wants what it wants. Don't you remember what it was like, though? To just assume he can blow past all of that shit because you want your Hallmark moment is the acme of fucking selfishness, dude. Of _course_ he can't tell you what he wants."

"I thought he felt something for me."

"He probably does. He probably feels a thousand confusing things for you because you're his freaking spirit guide, man. I know that Astrid and Matthew probably drove you the store to buy gay porn when you came out, but not everyone comes from the same place you do on this."

"You don't know everything, Wilkie." Greg sounded indignant.

"I know this, though." His blue eyes held onto Greg's brown ones and Greg felt briefly ashamed. James's parents hadn't spoken to him for five years after he came out, and they had only reluctantly reconciled with him at the funeral of his younger brother.

"Yeah. You're probably right." Greg suddenly felt drained.

James grinned suddenly. "If you can't have Captain Beefcake, do you fancy a bed for the day?"

Greg bit his lip. The thought of going home to his quiet apartment to be with his thoughts was unappealing. "Don't you have anything to do today, Wilkie?"

James smiled languorously. "Only you, sweetcheeks. I was just heading out for a spot of clothes shopping when I saw you come in here and thought you looked like you might need comforting."

Even though he knew he shouldn't, could almost taste the shame he would feel later when he woke up to go to work, Greg allowed James to pull him off his stool and lead him out into the sunshine to get a cab.

* * *

"Agent Stokes."

"Annie?"

"Is that you Nick?" He could almost hear Annie's brain running through scenarios that might explain why he had called her out of the blue. He usually only called on her birthday. "Is everything OK?"

"Sure, why?"

"You just never call me at work. In fact, baby brother, you hardly ever call me at all."

Nick was quiet. Now he had his favourite sister on the phone he could hardly bring himself to speak.

"Nicky?" He could hear the tap-tap of Annie's shoes on the floor in her office as she made her way into a more private corridor. "Are you sure everything is OK?"

"Yeah." Nick's voice broke on the word, and he restrained a sob only by sheer effort of will.

"Nicky? Are things 'get on a plane' bad, or just 'I need an ear' bad?" He had always admired the way that Annie cut to the chase. It no doubt made her an effective FBI agent, but it had also helped her negotiate life with five siblings.

"The second one." He'd managed to get his voice slightly under control.

"What's up?"

"Matters of the heart." Nick huffed out a breath. "I've been spending a lot of time with a co-worker and had hoped that we were getting somewhere, but they gave me an ultimatum today. I guess they were looking for a declaration of love, and I'm just not in the place to make that. And now it seems the whole thing is over and I'm worried about how it will be at work. And I know that you met David at work and thought you might have an insight."

Annie was silent.

"Annie, are you still there?"

"Nicky, is there a reason that you're playing the pronoun game?"

"What?" Nick was confused.

"You said 'they' instead of 'she' or 'he'. Is this co-worker a man?"

Nick's mouth was suddenly full of the bitter taste of adrenaline and he nearly dropped the phone. One of the last things on earth that he had wanted to happen was suddenly a reality, and he'd done it himself. He'd practically told his sister that he was involved with a man. He felt like his life was exploding around him and, for a split second, he wanted to hang up on his sister and eat his gun.

"Nicky?" Annie sounded even more concerned than she had at the start of the call.

"I'm still here," Nick croaked.

"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, Nicky. It just seemed like you were trying to."

He took a deep breath. His hands were still shaking. "Annie, no one can know. I truly didn't even mean to tell you. I just needed sisterly advice on the other stuff."

"Your secret is safe with me, Nicky. I won't tell a soul. I promise" He heard her hesitate. "Nicky, I just need to know you're OK."

Nick was struggling to keep his voice level. "I just really need everyone else in the family not to know. This is all just too much."

"Nick," Annie put on her stern voice. "This is all going to be OK. I'm not going to tell anyone. Hell, we don't even have to talk about it ever again unless you want to."

Nick drew another shaky breath. "OK. Thanks."

She cleared her throat. "On the sisterly work advice front, do you think it might help if you speak to this guy and ask him if you can keep it professional? He's not your boss or anything, is he? He probably doesn't have any great desire to see both your careers tank because you didn't work out as a couple."

"No, we're kind of the same level and he's a good guy."

"Good then. On the sisterly romantic advice, I think that you have to be happy with yourself before you can be with someone else. Having grown up in the same house as you, I can understand why you might not be comfortable coming out to us all, but if you're generally uncomfortable with who you are then are you in the right place to start seeing someone?"

Nick was crying again with sheer relief that she seemed to understand. "Oh, God. I'm so sorry I didn't trust you with this a long time ago. You're makin' a lot of sense and I really needed to hear that."

He could almost see Annie's eyes fill up from where he was sitting, despite the fact that she was over a thousand miles away in Dallas.

"Nicky, you don't have to apologise. As much as I love our family, it's a hard place to keep a secret." Her voice got really quiet. "In addition to the many other reasons for loving you, you'll always have a special place in my heart for the secret of mine you've always kept."

"No problem," Nick said, shakily.

"I've been thinking about it a lot, recently."

Nick frowned. "Why?"

He could hear the smile in her voice. "David and I are expecting a baby in six months. You're the first person we've told."

Nick grinned. "That is awesome, Annie. Congratulations."

"Thanks. We're really excited. I guess it's just strange thinking about the last time I was in this situation." Annie paused. "I've never told David about the abortion."

"Why not?" From what Nick had seen of Annie's husband of five years, David was a stand-up guy.

"Never found the right time, I guess, and this sure isn't it. 'Hey honey, look at the scan of our baby's heart beating and then we can go for ice cream while I tell you about the baby I killed when I was 16'." Annie's tone was dry.

"Annie, you didn't kill a baby. You have nothing to be ashamed of."

"Neither do you, brother dear." He could hear the smirk in her voice, and he gave her silent props for the skilful way she'd routed the conversation towards that moment.

He smiled, feeling incredible relief. "I'm slowly starting to come to that opinion but it's hard with Cisco's voice ringing in your ears."

"I bet. Just know that we're not all lining up to agree with him."

Nick smiled. "I do. Thanks, Annie. I love you."

"I love you too, baby brother. Now skedaddle, so I can fight some crime."

The smile lingered on Nick's face for a while after he had hung up the phone. Moving purposefully, he went into the bathroom and started to clean his teeth. Looking at himself in the mirror, he realised that he knew what he had to do.


	3. Find me on my knees

**Chapter three: Find me on my knees **

Nick had hoped to speak to Greg before the start of the shift but he wasn't answering his phone and leaving a voicemail seemed out of the question. He didn't even know what he wanted to say; was certain that he couldn't do it in the two minutes voicemail would give him. He felt a leaden lump in his stomach at the thought of going into work and facing Greg, but he managed to resist the temptation to call Grissom and beg for a last minute personal day. _Time to gut this out, Stokes. _

Although Greg didn't usually stay over, the apartment still felt empty somehow as Nick moved around getting ready for work. The plates of congealing spaghetti on the table echoed the greasiness of the misery that seemed to be lying over him like a blanket.

* * *

Greg woke up when James appeared beside his bed with a mug of coffee and an English muffin spread thickly with butter and topped with mashed bananas.

He smiled up at James as he put the breakfast tray down on the edge of the bed. Although he felt sick with the after-effects of the whisky they'd drunk earlier and queasy with remorse at having slept with James, none of that was James's fault.

"This still your hangover cure of choice, Sanders?"

"Yeah. It's the potassium and the magnesium in the bananas that works to get rid of the headache and nausea."

"Whatever, nerdling." James was grinning at him. "I couldn't remember what time your shift starts, so I hope you have time to eat this."

Greg glanced at the alarm clock next to James's bed. "Yeah, I should be fine. Can I take a shower?"

James waved his hand at a pile of fluffy towels that he had left on the end of the bed.

Greg sipped his coffee and raised his eyes appreciatively at the taste. "You've always been an excellent host, Wilkie."

James raised an eyebrow. "Well, it's only polite. If a delightful boy has spent a couple of hours pleasuring you in deliciously depraved ways then a clean towel and some mashed bananas are really the least he deserves."

Greg smiled, lazily. _God, this was a mistake. _

* * *

Grissom was tapping his pen against his thigh impatiently by the time Nick joined the rest of the night shift CSIs for their assignment meeting, even though it was still a few minutes until the shift was actually supposed to start.

"We have a small problem with the Salinger fire," he announced. Nick shook his head as Warrick held out his bag of M&Ms and Grissom frowned at them over the top of his clipboard.

"Day shift pieced together some fingerprint fragments that Catherine found on the cap of a plastic bottle full of gasoline, which matches the chemical signature of accelerant found at the scene. After some enhancement, the print came back to Jason Salinger. Unfortunately, the enhancement was so significant that the print isn't probative, so we need more from the scene. Nick, Warrick; can you two head out to the Salinger house? We're particularly interested in finding Jason Salinger's laptop."

"Sure thing, boss," said Warrick, throwing an M&M into his mouth.

Nick was aware of Warrick's eyes on him as they stood in the locker room, putting on their tac' vests and was almost prepared when Warrick spoke in the car.

"What's going on with you, Nick?"

Nick fought down a groan. _Of all the days for Warrick to start on this. _"Nothing. Just surprised about Jason Salinger is all."

Warrick shook his head. "If that's the way you want to play it man, fine by me."

Nick stared out of the window, watching as the houses changed in size and style until they were in the Salinger's plush subdivision.

Warrick pulled neatly into the driveway and took his key out of the ignition. He rested both hands on the steering wheel.

"I've changed my mind. It isn't fine with me. There's something up with you, Nicky, and I'd like to know what it is."

Nick snorted. "Been a long time since you called me that."

Warrick looked at him, hurt in his green eyes. "Been a long time since we've hung out."

Nick looked away, towards the smoking remains of the Salingers' house. _Dial the bitchiness down, Stokes. This guy is your friend._

"I've been going through some stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

Nick watched the LVPD officers securing the scene. They looked bored.

"I'm not the person you think I am."

Warrick huffed an impatient breath. "What kind of person are you, then?"

Nick turned his head back towards Warrick and looked him in the eye. "Gay."

Warrick's face screwed up in confusion for a fraction of a second and then his eyes widened in surprise. "You're gay?" It was only half a question. He nodded as if he had been satisfied on some point. "You're gay."

"Is it going to be a problem?" Nick was trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice, but he felt in that moment the weight of having Warrick not be there.

"A problem?"

"Yeah, you weren't raised thinking this was ok."

Warrick's mouth fell open. "Nicky, I was raised by an old religious woman. She and I have different opinions on just about everything." Warrick paused. "Come to think of it, how has Judge Stokes taken this?"

"We haven't discussed it. This is kind of a – new thing." The pain in Nick's voice was impossible to miss, and Warrick nodded his head in understanding.

Nick cleared his throat. "We need to get at this scene."

Warrick put his hand on Nick's arm. "Just a minute. This is maybe too much when neither of us has even touched a beer but I want you to know that I love you, man and I respect you, and you being gay changes neither of those things."

Nick turned his head away so Warrick wouldn't see the relief in his eyes. "Thanks, man. I love you, too."

Warrick grinned. "I mean, you still like sports right? You don't have to start going to the ballet or anything?"

Nick smiled back, a lump in his throat. "I'll have to check in the brochure they sent me with my membership card. Although, I'm still waiting to be told whether I'm on Team Liza or Team Judy so I may have to phone the customer hotline."

He laughed at Warrick's confusion. "Let's get to work."

* * *

"Have you seen Grissom?" Archie leaned against the doorframe of the DNA lab. "I have some phone calls to the Sands' concierge that I want him to listen to and I've paged him four times."

"No," said Greg, shortly. "I haven't seen him at all this shift."

Archie paused in the doorway. "Everything ok?"

Greg looked up from the sample he was processing. "I didn't take your advice about unavailable men. I should have."

Archie's face twisted in sympathy. "I'm sorry."

Greg shrugged. "I acted like an asshole. I'm not the person you should feel sorry for."

He leaned back over his sample, somehow small as though he had collapsed in on himself.

Archie hesitated, as if he was looking for some words that would be supportive, but Greg didn't look up.

* * *

The Fire Marshal's investigator looked Nick and Warrick up and down and shook his head. "You guys can't go in there. The place is about ready to fall down, even with the props that are shoring up the roof."

Warrick wiped the sweat off his brow. Even though dusk had fallen the breeze was hot and stifling, kicking up the embers that remained in the Salingers' house.

"We have a problem in that we think it's the houseowner who set the fire, but we have nothing probative. It's likely any evidence is in this burning heap of rubble but without any motive or means, the case will be impossible to prosecute. We need evidence for that."

"I don't want to see the sonofabitch walk any more than you do, but in this breeze the rest of the place could go up in a heartbeat, or fall down on your heads."

Warrick and Nick looked at each other. "We're looking for a laptop. Seen one of them anywhere?"

The investigator looked thoughtful. "I thought I saw one in what used to be the office. You two stay here and I'll go and get it."

"Are you planning to wear gloves?"

The investigator looked at Nick and scratched his head. "No, son. I was also planning on licking it when I found it. Would that be a bad idea?"

Nick grinned. "I'm sure the Fire Marshal's usual collection of evidence protocol will be just dandy."

* * *

As Nick strode towards the AV lab with the fragile laptop inside an evidence bag, Greg was walking back towards DNA with an armful of files. He was examining the topmost one; walking no less quickly than usual for the fact that he had his head down. The lump in Nick's stomach, which had been missing since his conversation with Warrick, returned. Greg almost looked like a different person after last night. The familiarity they had established over the course of so many months seemed to have dissolved like nitrates in water.

Greg turned into the DNA lab without looking up and Nick wasn't sure whether to be sorry or glad that they hadn't had to speak to each other.

Archie looked at Nick speculatively as he opened the evidence bag that contained the laptop, and Nick knew as surely as if Archie had told him that Greg had spoken to him about their relationship. Or lack of relationship. _Whatever._

"This is from the Salinger fire. We're hoping to get something off the hard drive."

Archie crinkled his nose. "It's a shame it's a laptop and not a desktop. The hard drives are much more robust on desktops and survive fire and water in pretty good shape."

Nick rubbed his forehead. "Just do the best you can, Archie. We haven't established a motive or found anything probative at all that pins it on Salinger. If he did do it, he'll walk without something more substantial."

"I'll page you as soon as I have anything."

* * *

Archie, through sheer persistence, eventually extracted fragments of data from Jason Salinger's hard drive. The data painted an ugly picture; including an affair with a young secretary from his office and an arson planned with brutal precision to ensure a payout from the insurance premium he had taken out on his wife.

He'd burned his wife and baby to death to avoid frittering away his lavish salary on alimony payments and child support, and to avoid the social opprobrium afforded men who abandon their young families.

_One of the meanest reasons for committing a violent, premeditated crime_, Nick reflected as he walked to his locker.

Greg was in the locker room, sitting on one of the benches with his knees together and his hands clasped in his lap like a small boy outside the principal's office. He looked up when Nick came in, and his eyes were full of apology.

"Hey."

"Hey," said Nick.

Greg twisted his hands together. "Could we go somewhere? Breakfast, maybe?"

There was a part of Nick that was so furious with Greg that he wanted to turn him down and leave him sitting in the locker room like a jilted prom date. But the bigger, better part of him wanted to still the butterflies in his stomach and to wipe the look of unhappiness off Greg's face.

And so then they were both sitting in their favourite diner; in their usual booth with their usual cups of coffee, but with an empty silence between them when it usually hummed with warmth.

"I was an asshole," Greg said, without preamble. "I was a stupid, selfish asshole and I'm sorry."

Nick looked at him. "I wish you hadn't just left, but you weren't a stupid, selfish asshole."

Greg didn't look away. "I fucked Wilkie."

Nick unsuccessfully tried to hide the look of pain that flicked across his face. "Wow."

"Yeah." Greg hunched his shoulders. "See? Asshole."

Nick pressed his lips together. The silence lasted only a few seconds but it seemed to fill Greg's head, until he could hear nothing else than the absence of sound.

"Something had to happen. We were living in a bubble."

"A bubble?"

"Yeah, a really nice bubble that gave me some time to figure things out. But we both knew it couldn't last forever. It wasn't real."

Greg's lip was curled. "It felt pretty real to me."

Nick sighed. "When you left last night I realised that I had no one to talk to about it. No one knew. This whole part of my life and you were the only person that knew."

"So tell other people."

"I did. I told Annie and I told Warrick."

Greg looked up from his coffee cup. "You did _what_?"

Nick smiled. "Yeah. I freaked out at Annie; I wanted to talk about us but I didn't mean to out myself. She was pretty cool about the whole thing. I should have done it months ago."

Greg smiled; pride dispelling his self-loathing. "And Warrick?"

"He said he loved me and nothing would change that."

"Warrick?" Greg's voice was almost screechy with incredulity.

"You have too little faith in people, man. Including yourself." Nick turned his cup round on the table. "Truth?"

Greg's spine straightened. "Truth."

Nick took a deep breath. "I do have feelings for you, but I don't know what they mean. You've helped me to discover this huge part of myself and to feel comfortable with it and I need to know, before we embark on something, that what I feel is real. I owe you that."

Greg's expression was unreadable. "And you figured all of this out last night?"

"Over these last few months you've shown me what I'm meant to be, Greggo." Nick swallowed. "I don't mean just the gay thing, although that's part of it. I mean that you're just you with no artifice, no pretense. I've spent my life building walls and playing a part. I don't want to play one with you."

"God, Nicky." Greg skimmed his fingers across one of Nick's hands. "Talk about the pupil surpassing the master. Although I'm pretty sure that Qui-Gon Jinn wasn't off fucking Darth Maul while Obi Wan came into his destiny."

Greg's smile slipped slightly. "I've been kicking myself a thousand different ways since I stormed out of your apartment like a teenager. Nothing about last night's conversation happened the way it should have and, whatever else happens, please know that I'm sorry for putting you in that place."

Nick looked at him, and the whole measure of the man was in his eyes. "You're forgiven."

"And I'm sorry about Wilkie."

Nick half-smiled. "If you were trying to make me jealous, then it worked."

Greg looked horrified. "No! I just wanted something comforting. I didn't want to sit all night thinking about how stupid I'd been. How I might have lost something really important to me."

"Sex is comforting?"

"Yes?" Greg's face was quizzical. "I mean, 'yes'. Yes, of course it is."

Nick's shook his head. "I have no claim on you, Greg. I get that you have needs."

"Not needs. Wants. I know we're not together, but we're not nothing to each other. I'll speak to you before I sleep with anyone else."

Nick smiled, mischievously. "Me too. Now, do you want to come over and watch the game?"

Greg smiled. "I'd like that."


	4. Walking against the water

**Chapter four: Walking against the water **

Nick hadn't expected Greg to come and pick him up from the airport, but he felt a bolt of pleasure go through him when he saw Greg's slim frame leaning against a pillar in arrivals at McCarran. As Greg wrapped his arms around him and Nick breathed in his familiar scent, he felt like he'd come home.

"How did it go?" Greg asked, once they'd loaded Nick's bag into the Jetta. "How are they?"

"Really excited," Nick grinned. "Annie's so proud of her bump – and boy does she have one now she's seven months along. She kept patting it with a sappy look on her face when she thought I wasn't looking."

Greg laughed. "And David?"

"I've never seen a man more delighted at the thought of being a father. Annie, being a superstitious Texan, won't buy a stick of baby furniture until the baby is actually here, but David is working on a crib out in his garage."

"Is it nice?"

"It's the most badly constructed crib I've ever seen. The guy definitely chose well when he decided to be a research chemist rather than a carpenter. I tried to help him a little, but I think I'm going to have to tell Annie to 'accidentally' spill solvents on it or something, before it ends up killing my niece or nephew."

Nick smiled at the memory of David excitedly showing him the crib; oblivious to the badly pounded in nails and sharp edges.

"And your parents?"

The smile faded from Nick's face. "We made it up to the ranch."

Greg gave him a fleeting look of concern. "Didn't go well?"

Nick swallowed. "I still hadn't decided what to do, you know? Annie and I had been talking for a couple of days about whether I should tell them; just going round and round."

Greg knew. They had been talking about it for a week before Nick flew off to Houston to visit his sister. Whether Nick could bear to lose his parents for good if they took it badly. Whether he could bear to keep something so important about his life from his family.

He looked at Greg's profile, watched Greg watching the road as they deftly wove in an out of the traffic coming out of McCarron.

"We had barbecue for lunch the day we were at the ranch and Cisco and I had gone to get more charcoal from the outside store. When we were coming back with it we could see Momma fussing over Annie and trying to get her to sit more in the shade. He hissed at me, Greg, there's no other word for it; 'I don't want your Momma to know that isn't ever going to happen for you.' "

Nick shivered, despite the heat. "I said, 'Pardon me, sir?' and he just gave me this awful look and said 'You know what I'm saying, boy. I won't have it in my house. Do you understand me?' and I nodded and that was that."

"Shit, I'm so sorry, Nicky."

"Yeah. I hadn't expected that. I thought that maybe I wouldn't tell them, or I would and there would be some kind of scene. I didn't expect to be cut off at the pass and told I'm disgusting."

The muscle in Greg's jaw jumped. "You know there's not a disgusting thing about you, right?"

"Yeah." Nick blew out a breath. "I just look at Annie and David all excited about their child and I wonder how that love that Cisco must have felt, went away. He looked at me like he hated me, Greg."

Greg took one hand off the steering wheel and wrapped it around Nick's.

* * *

Nick dropped his bag on the floor and sat down on his sofa with a groan. "Man, that feels good."

"Because you've not done enough sitting today? Did they make you stand up on the airplane?"

Nick flipped Greg the bird without opening his eyes. "Want a beer?"

Greg looked at his watch. "I should get back to my apartment and get ready for work. You're going out with Robert tonight, yes?"

Nick groaned. "You're right. God, I was clearly out of my mind when I agreed to that; I'm so not in the mood for second date banter."

"Says the guy with four other second dates behind him."

"Hey, I've been on more than nine dates."

Greg raised his eyebrow. "I'm not counting grinding with some anonymous guy on the dance floor as a date, Casanova."

Nick sighed with frustration. "This whole thing is stupid anyway."

Greg smiled. "You were right that day in the diner. You need to see what's out there."

"By going on dates with random people? This is the last time I take advice from you that you've based on watching sit-com reruns."

"What?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Sanders. I know about your little _Sports Night _addiction. I saw the episode where Dana tries to make Casey date other people before she'll go out with him."

Greg grinned as he moved towards the front door of Nick's apartment. "Stokes, I have no idea what you're talking about." His face softened as he reached for the doorhandle. "Be safe, won't you?"

Nick smiled.

Standing outside Nick's apartment with his back to the wall, Greg felt like the stupidest man alive. He wanted Nick so much that he ached and he regretted the moment four months ago when he had suggested that Nick should date other people. Being friends with someone while they decided if they wanted to be with you had sounded stupidly self-sacrificing when he'd thought of it, but the reality was so much worse. _I don't know how much more of this I can take. _

* * *

They were short-handed at the start of shift with Nick on a day off and Warrick preparing for a court date, so Greg had been dispatched with Sara to a frat-house gang rape up at UNLV. Greg half-suspected he had been sent along to babysit Sara, and not for the field experience. He had no great insight into Grissom and Sara's relationship but it was clear that Grissom hadn't noticed that therapy was starting to take off some of Sara's edges.

"We can't split up, so shall we start at the scene and then we'll take whatever we've got back to the lab when the SAE kit is ready?" Sara was looking at him expectantly. She'd parked her Denali outside the fraternity house; next to the LVPD patrol car with its flashers on.

"Sure thing, but won't the SAE kit be finished soon?"

Sara shook her head. "They've probably only just started, so it won't be ready for hours yet."

"_Hours?" _

Sara knit her brows. "Yeah, it takes about five hours to do an SAE kit. Have you not covered them in your field training?"

"Nope. Nevada trained male CSIs don't learn how to do SAE kits anymore, because we have SANE nurses in this state and most vics prefer a woman."

Sara's mouth flickered up in one corner. "Interesting."

Greg opened his mouth to say something else, but she was already jumping out of the Denali down to the ground.

The room that the rape had taken place in was down in the basement of the frat house. The place was a mess; covered in beer bottles and ashtrays that had both cigarette and joint ends in them. The smell of stale bongwater hung in the air.

Sara put her kit down. "We're basically looking for fingerprints and fluids to try and sort out who was where and doing what. I imagine the defence will be consent, so anything we find that undermines that would be useful also."

Greg nodded, eyes taking in the scene.

* * *

The bar Robert had taken them to was nice, Nick reflected. _A bit too nice_. It said _relationship _and _commitment _rather than _flirting _and _fling. _Robert was a decent guy; a corporate lawyer whose mother was heavily involved in PFLAG, but all that mattered to Nick was that he wasn't Greg.

The start of the evening hadn't been a complete disaster. He and Robert had made polite, if desultory, conversation and Nick had learned more than ever wanted to know about anti-trust litigation and the difficulty of finding a decent golf caddy. And Robert was incredibly hot, with a face that looked like it belonged in Hollywood, rather than a lawyer's office.

He wasn't Greg though and eventually, out of a desire to see the evening - with its steaks and snifters of brandy - come to an end, Nick crossed a line.

It had seemed like nothing when he was sitting in the back of the cab on his way back to Robert's five-bed, three-and-a-half-bath McMansion. It still seemed like nothing when they were kissing hard up against Robert's wine fridge with Robert's fingers twined through his hair. But, suddenly, it seemed like something when Nick was on his knees on Robert's kitchen floor with Robert in his mouth. It felt like a punch in the gut and Nick couldn't believe he'd been so stupid as to have assumed that this would be ok.

Robert had barely finished when Nick zipped up his trousers and thanked him for a lovely evening, leaving Robert looking confused and disappointed even as the flush faded from his chest and his breathing slowed.

Not even waiting for a cab, Nick started to walk back towards the Strip. He was shaking, but not enough to stop him from pulling out his phone and texting Greg. _Can you come over after shift? _

* * *

It had taken Greg hours to isolate all six donors from the SAE kit. Day shift would have the task of comparing the donors' DNA to the samples that he and Sara had taken from the basement of the frat house. They would also run the samples swabbed from the snaking queue of unapologetic fraternity brothers who were well drilled in this most unlovely of rituals. This was the third rape that had been reported at this frat house in five years.

Greg had worked long past the end of his shift and was surprised that Nick was still awake when he let himself in to Nick's apartment. Nick was sitting on the sofa, in the dark, watching _The Wedding Banquet. _

"Hey," Greg smiled. "I wasn't sure if you'd still be up. Everything ok?"

"Sure," Nick clicked off the TV and untangled himself from the blanket he had been sitting under. "Good shift?"

"Not bad," Greg said. "I got to go out in the field. Gang rape at UNLV with a very zen Sara."

"Nice," Nick smiled. "Well, not _nice _exactly. It's good that you're getting more field experience."

"Yeah. So," Greg hesitated. "You texted. Did everything go ok with Robert?"

Nick's smile faltered. "It went fine. But I don't want to talk about Robert."

"What then?" Greg was starting to get an uneasy feeling. There was a strange tension in the room.

Nick took Greg's hand and pulled him into the kitchen. He got them both a beer out of the fridge, popped the caps and leaned back against the counter. Nick's kitchen was small enough that Greg could smell Nick; mouthwash and soap and the faintest trace of an unidentifiable liquor.

"I'm calling time on this experiment of yours. I don't want to see any other people." Nick paused. "I just want to see you."

"Nicky –"

"No, fuck the experiment. I'm in love with you, Greg. And dating every gay man west of the Mississippi is just going to waste time that I could spend with you." Nick grinned. "Are you telling me you're no longer on the market? That you and Wilkie are setting up home together?"

Greg rolled his eyes. "Of course not."

And then Nick leaned forward and kissed him.

Greg had, in the hundreds of hours he had spent thinking about this, worried that this might be a difficult hurdle to get over. That going from touching like friends to touching like something else completely, would be hard.

Actually, having Nick's tongue in his mouth felt like the most right thing in the whole world; having the heat of Nick's body pressed up against him made shivers of desire go up and down his spine. Greg groaned against Nick's mouth and slid his hand down Nick's chest and over the muscled plain of his stomach toward the waistband of his sweats. Nick grabbed his wrist and, backing Greg into the wall, pushed both his hands above his head so he was stretched out along the wall like a man on a rack.

Greg was harder than he could ever remember being from a minute of making out and, arching his back, he angled his pelvis towards Nick. He met nothing but space. He wriggled harder. Nick was holding him against the wall; mouth still on Greg's but with a foot of clean air between the parts of their bodies Greg wanted to be touching.

"Nicky," Greg broke his mouth away. "Do you want to take this into the bedroom?"

"Hmm?" Nick's mouth was hot on his neck.

"Should we go to bed?"

And then Nick had let go of Greg's wrists and stepped away from him with a look on his face that Greg couldn't read. "I'm pretty tired, Greggo. Could we just go to sleep?"

Greg hoped he had succeeded in keeping the look of shock off his face. "Sure, Nick. Whatever you want."

"Do you want a shower?"

Greg nodded, confused.

Nick vanished into his bedroom and came back with some blue cotton pyjama bottoms and a white t-shirt and gave them to Greg.

"There are clean towels in the bathroom and a spare toothbrush in the cabinet. I'll see you in bed?" Nick didn't meet Greg's eyes with his own.

As Greg stood in Nick's shower under the hot spray he realised, with a sensation close to panic, that he had cosmically misjudged where the hurdle might be in their physical relationship.

Greg towelled himself off and put on the pyjamas that Nick had given him with a sinking heart. Pyjama pants and a t-shirt were more than he had worn to bed since he was eleven and he'd never been given such extensive sleepwear by any other boyfriend, date or casual bed acquaintance. He fought down the desire to phone James Wilkes for a quick consult on gay pyjama etiquette; to try to work out what all of this _meant_.

Nick was sitting up in bed when Greg went through to his bedroom. Suddenly unsure, Greg gestured to the side that Nick wasn't occupying. "May I?"

Nick raised his eyebrows. "Of course, man."

Sliding under the crisp covers, Greg was painfully aware that this moment, which had imagined over and over again, was not going to plan. Nick was leaning against the headboard of his bed, with his knees forming points under the duvet. The tension that Greg had felt in the sitting room had followed them into Nick's bedroom and was written in the line of Nick's arms and in the careful blankness of his face.

He bunched up the pillows on his side of the bed, so he could lean against the headboard too.

"Are you ok, Nicky?"


	5. Blessings in the valley

**Chapter five: Blessings in the valley **

**Warning: **This chapter includes non-explicit details about the abuse Nick experienced as a child.

************

"I don't think I can do this," Nick said. His voice sounded stretched to breaking point.

In the awful, cathedral-like silence that followed Greg thought about how this relationship of thirty minutes might be over already, and how deeply unfair it was that this was so impossibly hard.

"Do what?"

Nick looked at Greg, confused. "Have sex tonight."

It was all Greg could do to keep himself from laughing out loud. He couldn't imagine anything less arousing than the sight of Nick hunched over himself, the light from his bedside lamp pooling on his face in a way that accentuated his expression of misery.

It felt wrong to be like this in Nick's bed. To be having this conversation somewhere that was supposed to be a place for warmth and comfort and love.

"I think," said Greg, "that we should get up and have some cocoa, and discuss this in the living room."

Nick looked at him in confusion, but obediently swung his legs out of the bed. By the time Greg had installed him on the sofa and put the two mugs on the coffee table, Nick was starting to look more like himself.

"Nicky, what happened with Robert?" The time he had spent heating milk and making their drinks had given Greg the opportunity to think.

Nick pulled his knees into his chest and wrapped his arms around them. "Does it matter?"

"I don't know." Greg stroked his hand down Nick's back. "I think something's going on with you, but I'm not sure what it is. Do you not want to tell me what happened tonight?"

Nick sighed. "We just had a date, man. We went for dinner and drinks and then I went back to his place for a while and then I left."

Greg considered that. "What happened at his place?"

"Are you my mother? We just fooled around."

"What do you mean by 'fooling around'?"

"Look, I just wanted the night to be over, ok? I just wanted to come back here and tell you how I felt. What I'd been thinking in Texas about us and how much I wanted to be with you."

_How every day I sat on the porch swing and watched the sun set over the pasture, and thought of you. How every time I saw David touch Annie or Annie touch David I thought of your hands. How I missed talking to you so much that it hurt._

At Greg's look of confusion, Nick continued. "I thought if I made him happy then I could leave. He's a grown man. He has needs."

Greg bit his lip. "No, Nicky, he has wants. And a right hand if those wants don't coincide with the wants of the person who he's with. Did he –"

Greg didn't know how to continue. He wasn't even sure what he wanted to ask, except that Nick shouldn't look like this; shouldn't be curled over on himself like he was trying to prevent the world from hurting him again.

Nick looked up, shocked. "No! _No_. Jesus, how pathetic do you think I am?"

"I think you're as far from pathetic as it's possible to get. Which has absolutely zero to do with the conversation we're having just now."

"What _are _we talking about, man?" Nick sounded irritated.

"We're talking about why you came back from a date looking like you just worked a triple in a serial killer's basement."

"Because I'm a pathetic, sad fuckup. Because I can't do what people expect me to do."

"And what do people expect you to do?" Greg's voice was even.

"I'm a thirty-five year old gay man. I'm pretty sure that I'm supposed to be able to give someone a blow job without wanting to throw up." Nick blushed a deep, ferocious red.

Greg relaxed slightly, and nearly made a joke about practice and gag reflexes, and then another reading of what Nick was saying percolated through his brain. He laid a hand on Nick's back, feeling the muscles ripple underneath his t-shirt and wondered briefly how someone who was so strong in every way could feel so weak.

"What made you want to throw up?"

Nick looked away and Greg felt the bitter sting of possibly being right. "All I could think about was the last time I did that." His voice choked. "To Mark."

Greg felt his chest tighten. "Mark?"

"My babysitter's boyfriend." Nick's voice was so quiet that Greg almost couldn't hear it.

"The guy who abused you?"

Nick's back stiffened under his hand and Greg wanted to smash things; break everything in this room, this apartment, this city. It wasn't fucking _fair. _

"Have you been thinking about this stuff a lot, Nick?"

"No. Yes. I don't know. I thought all of this was behind me." Nick's chin was propped on his knees and he sounded completely defeated.

"And then?"

Nick licked his lips. "I've been thinking about this all night. Where this latest round of _this _came from. I think that it started at the ranch." He paused. "Momma had some baby photos she wanted to show Annie and she sent me upstairs to get them from my old room. I haven't been in that room in years."

He shuddered. "Jesus, Greg, that bed. It was so small. I just stood there looking at it. It was so _small._"

Greg's face was full of distress as he tightened his hold on Nick. "God, I'm so sorry."

Nick half turned his head towards Greg, his cheek resting on his knee and his arms wrapped protectively across his shins. "For what?"

"For everything. For what you went through as a child. For the fact that I never asked you about it. I feel like we should have discussed this. I feel like I should have realised that the physical stuff might be a problem for us."

Greg looked at Nick's hunched form. "I was so wrapped up in not going crazy wanting you that I stopped thinking about what you might need."

Nick waved his hand, as if to brush away the possibility that Greg had been selfish and inconsiderate.

"Greggo, how could you possibly know something that I didn't even know about myself? It wasn't until I was with Robert that I realised something was really wrong."

"Was he nice to you?" Greg's voice was fierce.

Nick paused, assessing. "Yeah. Yeah, he was. He didn't hurt me, Greg. I hurt myself."

Greg laughed shakily. "Oh, I think that Mark deserves as much of the blame as you can spare."

Nick ducked his head. "Yeah."

Greg looked at him, sharply. "Is this ok to talk about? I don't want to make you uncomfortable, or cross any boundaries, but if we're going to navigate all of this then we might need to get specific."

"No, it's really ok." Nick smiled a half-smile. "You might not realise this because I'm a basket case right now, but I've done a lot of work on this."

"I know." Greg fluttered his hand down Nick's spine.

"So, you can ask me anything you want."

Greg took a breath. "I don't really know how to phrase this, but is there anything that we might do together that doesn't have a really unpleasant association for you?"

Nick thought, eyes closed. "Kissing. And he never, um, used his mouth on me."

"Jesus, Nicky."

Nick surveyed Greg's face. Saw the shock in his eyes, but also the love. He stretched out his own hand and rested in on Greg's knee, feeling the thin cotton of the pyjama pants under his fingers. Squeezed his fingers around Greg's knee.

"Greggo, I can't explain why blowing Robert was a strong reminder." He paused. "I don't think that just because Mark hurt me in some specific way that doing something with you that's physically similar is going to be a problem. Abuse isn't the end of people's sex lives."

Nick grinned. "Don't you remember that conference three months ago where you ended up rooming next to Sara and she and Grissom provided empirical evidence of that, thanks to those paper thin walls."

Greg's smile barely reached his eyes. "Nicky, you need to promise me something."

"What?"

"We can wait as long as you need to do any and all of those things you've got bad memories of. Hell, I don't care if I have to spend the rest of my life jerking off in the shower." He took a beat to steady himself. "I just need to know that if we're ever doing something and you want it to stop then you'll make that clear. Straight away."

Nick scanned his face. "Ok."

"Promise?" Greg said, fiercely.

"I promise." He paused. "Truth?"

"Truth."

"I'm scared I'm never going to be enough for you." His voice was strong and even.

"Enough?"

"Yeah. You've been with a whole bunch of guys. I'm sure that most of them were real experienced and real proficient at things that I probably don't even know the names for. And here I am, this blushing schoolgirl."

Greg's mouth fell open. "Nicky, none of that matters."

"It feels like it does."

"Ok, tell me to back off if this is none of my business, but have you liked the sex you've had with any of the women you've slept with?"

Nick's face fell. "Not really. It just seemed kind of expected."

Greg laced his fingers through Nick's. "That's not unusual. Let's not forget that you're a gay man." He smiled. "The point is that sex isn't a performance you put on or something you do _to _someone. It should be something you do _with _someone."

Nick sat up straighter. "You mean, if you're in love?"

Greg shook his head. "I mean no matter what. Wilkie and I, we're friends who fuck occasionally. I like him and he's a good guy. We have nice sex because we enjoy making each other feel good and we're together in the moment. Brian and I, we were in love. We had great sex because there was a big emotional connection that's missing from the sex Wilkie and I have."

Greg paused. "I hooked up with this guy Scott once who thought he was a stone cold fox. He had a toy box the like of which I had never seen and he had this little sex routine going, where I bet he would perform the same tricks for every one of his conquests. I would give him 5.8 for technical merit and a zero for artistic interpretation. I may as well have not been there at all, except that I was supposed to be playing my part as the appreciative audience."

Greg kissed the back of his Nick's hand. "The point is, Nicky, that there's no way that you could disappoint me in bed because I know your heart. I know that if we don't get beyond kissing it's not because you're not trying your damnedest to recover from some nasty shit that wasn't your fault. And that's enough. God, it's so enough."

He shook his head. "You're crazy if you think you aren't the best thing that's ever happened to me."

Nick's brown eyes were shimmering with tears. He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Greg, sliding his hands down Greg's back and under his t-shirt. Greg realised with a start that this was the first time Nick had ever initiated physical contact like this.

Nick took his head off Greg's shoulder and smiled, his face two inches from Greg's. He tilted his head forward until his mouth covered Greg's. The kiss was warm and soft and tasted of cocoa.

"Come to bed?" Nick said.

Greg hesitated. "I can go back to my apartment, Nicky. It's not a big deal and today's been kind of intense. If you need some space, I understand."

Nick nodded. "I'd like you stay. It's the kind of thing a boyfriend does."

He was rewarded by the look on Greg's face. It was the look of Christmas morning, bright and shining with possibilities.

The second time they climbed into bed was also not how Greg had imagined it, but it was awesome in its realness. To lie on Nick's crisp sheets and to look at Nick's bedroom in the half-light that came from the bedside lamps. To feel the warmth radiating from Nick as he lay next to Greg.

Nick looked at Greg's face lying on the pillow next to his and smiled an embarrassed smile. "On those rare occasions that I have someone in my bed, I normally pretend like this isn't true but I sleep with the light on. I have a sleep mask if you like. Or I could just turn it off."

Greg shook his head, rustling the white cotton pillow case. "I'll take the sleep mask."

* * *

"Day shift matched your six samples to references from six fraternity brothers," Sara said.

Greg looked up from the first batch of samples from Warrick and Nick's hotel burglary investigation. Thirty-five rooms at the Luxor had been divested of laptops, jewellery, passports and shopping bags; the third hotel burglary in a month.

"Yeah I saw. I guess they've lawyered up?"

Sara nodded. "They've got six different lawyers so they haven't really got themselves organised yet. No doubt they'll be running a consent defence now that the evidence establishes location at the scene and penetration." She paused. "The problem is that the physical description the vic gave of one of the perps doesn't match any of our six, or any of the other fraternity brothers."

Greg furrowed his brow. "I didn't miss a donor. I can take another pass at it, but I'd stake my car on having gotten the semen analysis right."

Sara shook her head. "He could have worn a condom. We haven't turned one up."

"I analysed the skin from under her nails but that matched one of the six. She didn't seem to have scratched anyone else."

Sara's face darkened at that and Greg found himself wondering if they'd held her arms or just hit her until she decided not to scratch them anymore and then his mind slid off that topic because _God damn it._

"Do you think she'll be ok?"

Sara had looked at him for a long minute because Greg so rarely asked about the victims. He let the spaces between the words he spoke spell out the empathy he had for the CSIs dealing with rough cases and, by proxy, the victims themselves.

Even her agile mind would probably not have made the connection if Nick hadn't arrived at just that moment, toting a fresh bunch of evidence bags. Pausing in the doorway of the DNA lab he was as tousled and loose hipped as if they'd spent all night fucking rather than sleeping on separate sides of Nick's bed.

Thinking about that, Greg hadn't been able to smooth the look of lust off his face in time and, looking between them, Sara's brain started to generate a differential diagnosis that would explain all of this.

She smiled at Greg then; a pure, brilliant smile and he wanted to talk about it more but not with Nick standing there realising that he'd lain their cards down in front of Sara face up. Not when this was so new and fragile and he'd only just found out that Nick drank his coffee standing up in the kitchen before coming to work and that all of his underwear was exactly the same.

* * *

"I think she knows," Greg said, after Sara had gone.

"Don't care."

"You don't care?"

"Greggo, of all the things in this world that give me pause for thought, the fact that Sara thinks we're together doesn't even rank in the top 100." Nick furrowed his brow. "Do _you _care?"

"God, no."

"Well then?" Nick sounded defiant.

Greg sighed. "We should probably talk about how we're going to let people at work know. Sound Grissom out."

Even the thought of telling his mentor and boss that he was gay and in a relationship with a colleague barely made Nick blink. "Sure. Later."

"Nicky?" Greg's voice was gentle.

Greg saw Nick sag slightly under the weight of the reality. "Yeah." He drew his hand wearily across his eyes. "That's a conversation I'm not looking forward to." _I never meant to let you down, Grissom. _

"I'll speak to Sara. Let her know that it would be nice if we had a bit more time."

"Thanks." Nick paused. "I'm not ashamed. Of you. Of us."

Greg smiled. "I know that, man."

"I'm pretty much happier than I've ever been."

"I know that too. But all things in good time, ok?"

"Ok."

* * *

"Sara?" Greg had caught up with her in the corridor, and ushered her into the empty layout room.

Sara leaned against the big layout table with her arms crossed in front of her, smirking. "Nice to know that I'm not going to be the only person in this lab getting sideways glances from here on out. You two certainly kept that quiet."

Greg held his hands out, palm up. "Sara – "

Her hands dropped to her sides. "It's ok, Greg. I can keep a secret."

He gave her a pleading look. "It's just brand new."

"And shiny."

"Yeah." He grinned shyly.

She smiled. "I'm really happy for you both. This place can kind of suck the marrow out of you."

"Yeah."

She looked thoughtful. "You were asking about the vic of the frat house rape?"

He straightened up. "Yes."

She looked him straight in the eye. "There's nothing to stop her being everything she was meant to be."


	6. Longing to see the roses

**Chapter six: Longing to see the roses **

It had been a straightforward enough bank robbery. If a 24 hour long siege that ended with a shootout could be described as straightforward. If the injury of two hostages and two police officers and deaths of all four robbers was business as usual.

The whole night shift had been at the scene, photographing blood spatter and bullet casings; swabbing the foam that they had used to blow open the safe deposit boxes of the small savings and loan.

In the middle of the detritus of 30 scared people who had been allowed to eat and drink and, eventually, sleep, Nick had set up an improvised desk. He had swabbed people's cheeks to add to the DNA record of the case. He collected fingerprints and contact details; checking IDs like a scrupulous doorman.

Last in line was a young woman with long brown hair under a headscarf and a pinched, white face.

"Can I see some ID?" Nick held out his hand.

"I have my passport and stuff with my address on it. I was here to open an account." She sounded like him.

Nick glanced over it. "Miss, as you're only 16 I'm going to need your parent or guardian's permission to get a DNA sample and fingerprints. Is anyone here with you?"

She shook her head. "I'm legally emancipated from my parents. They don't live in Las Vegas."

Nick looked closely at her. She had a graze on her hand, but seemed basically ok. "Do you have the order that the judge gave you?"

She drew a thin wallet out of her backpack and pulled out a court order; handing it to Nick. She had been emancipated from her parents in Texas. He printed and swabbed her briskly, and then, because she seemed so young and alone, he asked if she was ok.

"I think so," she answered. "I feel kind of odd, but I'm ok."

Nick bit his lip. "Is there anyone I can call for you?"

She shrugged. "I just moved here. All my roommates are at work or school and I don't know anyone else well enough to call."

Nick hesitated. "Could I call your parents then?"

Her face darkened. "No way."

Nick sighed. "Whatever led to you becoming emancipated, don't you think they'd want to know you were just a hostage?"

She shook her head. "They've given me over to Satan."

Nick did a double take. "Pardon me?"

She almost laughed. "Sorry, I still forget that this stuff sounds like mumbo jumbo to the rest of the world. My parents' church is really strict and I've broken almost all of the rules by leaving and getting emancipated." She shrugged. " 'Turning people over to Satan' is a concept from the Bible, where Paul says people who are expelled from the church should be shunned and that the devil will get rid of the sin in them."

She did laugh then, a hollow, bitter laugh. "They would see this whole hostage situation as bringing me closer to God by reminding me of the death and sin in the world. I don't want to talk to them."

Nick hesitated. "This is none of my business, but do you have a place to stay?" _Vegas is no place for lost sixteen year old girls, _he thought.

She nodded. "It's a house for women run by a more liberal church. I'm going to stay until I finish high school. I really love science, which was part of the problem."

While the rest of the CSIs photographed, collected, swabbed and scraped she told Nick about how her mother had taken her to the small library in her West Texas town when she was a child and how she'd read almost every book in the children's section. When her parents had moved the family to a stricter church and started homeschooling them, she couldn't help but contrast the homeschooling textbooks with what she'd read at the library.

As she'd grown older, her parents thought she was scouring the internet for creationist websites, and praised her dedication to promoting their worldview. She had actually been reading the words of the palaeontologists, geologists, chemists, and biologists that disagreed with the authors of the books her parents gave her.

When she'd finally told them that she wanted to go to a top ten school to study science she had been offered attendance at a Christian school with a strong creationist science curriculum. She had used the internet to find out about emancipation and to leave, against a backdrop of recriminations, denunciations and threats of eternal hellfire.

"Wow," Nick said.

"Yeah," she shrugged. "I couldn't live a lie. I just didn't realise that living the truth would be so lonely and so hard. Still, I'm sure it will get easier."

"Yeah," Nick said. "I hope so." His eyes drifted to the scarf on her head.

She fingered it self-consciously. "I've worn this since I was five. I know I don't need to carry on but somehow my hands put it on every day."

Nick smiled sympathetically before he realised that Brass was beckoning him over.

He looked at the girl. "I have to get back to work now," he said. "Good luck with everything."

"Thanks." She had a nice smile. He hoped she would make it.

* * *

"Wow," said Greg, between bites of an apple. "I'm not sure my dedication to science would have made me emancipate myself from my family."

"Pretty amazing, huh?" Nick had just finished putting some broccoli in the steamer, and was leaning against his kitchen counter.

"Yeah. Good luck to her."

Nick hesitated. "I've been thinking about writing to my parents."

Greg's eyebrow flickered. "Since speaking to this girl?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Greg sighed. "It means that I'm worried that you're looking everywhere for signs to tell you what you should do."

Nick curled his lip. "You're making me sound like some delusional, horoscope-reading housewife."

"I just think that the reason you're having such a hard time making this decision is because it's a hard decision. If it was so easy, wouldn't you have found the answer by now?"

Nick sighed. "I'm speaking to Grissom tomorrow. I just want to get passed all of this so we can get on with our lives."

Greg shook his head slowly. "Nicky, I think you need to face the fact that there may be no 'passed this'. Depending on how your family react, this may affect the relationships with them for the rest of your life."

Nick looked at him with an expression that hovered on the fringes of dislike. "So you keep saying."

Greg stepped towards Nick, curling one hand round the back of Nick's neck. "Don't you think I would give anything to have their reaction be a good one? To have them accept us? To be able to hang out at the ranch during the holidays with all of your brothers' and sisters' wives and husbands and kids?"

Nick tipped his head forward until his forehead was resting against Greg's chest. They stood in silence for a long moment.

"I love you." Nick's voice was husky.

"I love you, too."

Nick lifted his head and looked at Greg. "I love them as well. And I don't understand why this has to be so hard."

Greg stroked one finger down the side of Nick's face.

"Why are your family so cool with this?" There was a pleading tone to Nick's voice.

Greg dropped his hand from Nick's face. "Different people. Different views." Greg shrugged. "My parents weren't particularly engaged with my life. Maybe they didn't have such clear ideas about what they wanted for me?"

Nick turned round to check on the broccoli. "Was that ok? Their lack of engagement?"

Greg's mouth twisted. "It was what it was. They had this view that they had a street smart kid who could navigate the world pretty well. They were lucky to be right."

Nick frowned. "What do you mean?"

Greg bit his lip. "Do you remember me telling you about my first boyfriend, Andy?"

Nick nodded. Greg had a million funny stories about partying hard with Andy across San Francisco's scene. Of first love and first sex. Of learning the ropes of a new subculture.

"When we first got together I was 15 and he was 27."

Nick blinked.

"My parents met Andy, and thought he was a nice guy. He _was _a nice guy. He treated me with incredible kindness. But I do think my parents were out of their minds to let their teenager run around town with someone in his late twenties. There are a thousand ways that could have gone wrong, but they didn't seem involved enough to care."

Nick pictured a fifteen year old Greg, thin veneer of bravado in place, taking his first stumbling steps in a relationship with a much older man. Not knowing how to ask for what he wanted or to give what someone else needed. His heart flipped.

"Greg – "

Greg looked past Nick to the stove. "Broccoli's done. Let's eat."

* * *

"You wanted to speak to me, Nick?" Grissom looked up from his paperwork, which was cast with shadows from the lamp on his desk. Nick was grateful that it was so dark in Grissom's office; that the fear on his face wouldn't be remorselessly picked out by overhead lighting.

"Yeah." Nick's voice stuck in his throat.

Grissom gestured at the seat opposite him. Nick sat down gingerly, as if testing his welcome in his supervisor's space.

"How can I help."

Nick cleared his throat. "I've been in a relationship with a co-worker for about a month. I know you need to know that kind of thing."

Grissom blinked. Nick could almost see him trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

"May I ask with whom?"

"Greg."

Grissom's face was so perfectly blank that Nick thought for a moment that he hadn't said Greg's name out loud. The silence hummed between them.

Grissom's forehead wrinkled. "Nick, are you ok?"

"What?"

"You seem upset."

Nick's shoulders sagged. "I didn't want to let you down."

Grissom's frown deepened. "You haven't let me down. Department procedure just requires a file note on personal relationships between staff to protect cases from legal challenge. I'll lodge the paperwork right now."

Nick swallowed. "I mean, because I never told you. Because I'm different than you thought."

Grissom considered this. "Have you told everyone else?"

"No." He made a frustrated noise in his throat. "It's not who I thought I was. It's hard -" He broke off.

"Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds."

"What?"

"It's from Shakespeare, Nick. It means that if you truly love someone then them changing, or you finding out new things about them, shouldn't change your feelings for them." Nick looked at his hands.

"You're an excellent CSI and the best student I ever had." Grissom paused. "You're also a good man, Nicky. Never doubt that."

Nick started, wordlessly, to cry.

* * *

Warrick eyed Nick's flushed face curiously as they headed out to the parking lot en route to the savings and loan, but said nothing. Nick offered up a silent prayer of thanks as he swung his Denali on to the busy Vegas street.

Day shift had made some progress with their laser reinactment of the fire fight at the small bank, but despite their best efforts to construct a theory there were still some unexplained bullet holes.

After three hours of crawling on the floor moving the laser units around, Nick and Warrick had developed a credible theory for the exchange of fire. They were now looking for an additional suspect, who had been crouched down behind the counter for the majority of the gun battle; out of the sight line of witnesses.

A stray palm print, lifted expertly by Warrick, would go some way to help identify the additional shooter.

"Archie has been over the surveillance tapes of them entering the building," said Nick, straightening up. "There were definitely only four of them then."

"Our guy must have either sneaked in after they disabled the surveillance cameras, or must have already been here."

Nick looked thoughtful. "My money is on 'already here'. That way he could merge in with the rest of the customers after he'd been involved in the shoot-out."

Warrick looked at him. "If so, you'll have his details on file."

Nick grinned. "Yep."

Warrick surveyed the scene. "There's no more we can do here. I've uploaded the laser co-ordinates onto my tablet, and photographed them for backup. Should we head back to the lab and start looking at the customers?"

Nick nodded.

They had only just buckled themselves in when Warrick touched Nick's arm. "Tell me to back off, but is everything ok? You didn't look ok earlier."

Nick paused, key in the ignition. "I spoke to Grissom."

"About being gay?" Warrick's green eyes regarded him unflinchingly.

"About being in a relationship with a co-worker."

Warrick's eyebrows shot up. "Greg?"

Nick leaned against the headrest. "Good guess."

Warrick grinned. "My next guess was Archie."

Nick leaned forward. "You think Archie –?"

Warrick shook his head. "No. But I can't picture you and Hodges doing anything more than have a quick hatefuck and I know you and me weren't hooking up."

Nick grimaced. "'Hatefuck' is such an ugly word, Rick. In fact, it's an ugly idea."

Warrick smiled. "Sorry, man."

Nick shrugged his forgiveness. "What about David?"

Warrick regarded him soberly. "You as a homewrecker? I don't think so."

Nick half-smiled. "Nice to know that some people still think that I'm on the side of the angels."

Warrick frowned. "Did Grissom –?"

"No, no." Nick swallowed. "My Daddy. He guessed. He's not tacking a rainbow flag to the front of the ranch. In fact, he's forbidden me from telling my Momma."

Warrick's face softened. "I'm sorry, man. That sounds rough."

"Yeah." Nick stared out of the windscreen.

"So," Warrick cleared his throat. "You and Greg."

Nick smiled. "Yeah. Kind of strange, huh?"

Warrick shrugged. "He's a good guy. You have my blessing." He looked at Nick's smiling profile. "Things are good?"

Nick rolled the question around in his head. Thought of how things were going. How Greg's sleep-warm body smelled in his bed. How they were often sharing the same pillow when they woke up, having tangled themselves impossibly around each other while they were asleep. How Greg's fingers felt trailing under his waistband. How Greg's mouth felt on him. How Greg could sense Nick drifting away sometimes when they were having sex and how he stopped what he was doing and looked at Nick with such love and concern that it twisted in Nick's chest like a knife. How Greg tasted. How Greg almost never stopped talking, even when he was cleaning his teeth but how he knew, infallibly, when Nick needed silence. The look on Greg's face when he came. How sometimes he felt such enormous love for Greg it was like a laser beam splitting his chest open.

Nick looked at Warrick. "Yeah, it's pretty sweet."

Turning the key in the ignition he felt his decision slide into place. _I'm writing to Momma tonight. _


	7. Feeling the pricking thorns

**Chapter seven: Feeling the pricking thorns **

**Warning: **This chapter includes non-explicit details about the abuse Nick experienced as a child.

************

"My place or yours, Mr Stokes?" Greg had one eyebrow raised in a way that Nick knew he thought made him look like Cary Grant.

Nick sighed. "Could we stay at my apartment again?"

Greg smiled, his face screwed up against the morning sunshine in a way that Nick found completely adorable. "Yeah, we can. Although I need to swing by my place to get some clean clothes and pick up the mail. I've not been home in four days."

A shadow crossed Nick's face at the mention of mail. "I'm sorry, Greggo. It's just that if Momma does respond to my letter it will probably be at my place."

Greg shaded his eyes with one hand. "I know, baby. Don't worry about it."

Nick fiddled with his belt loop. "Why don't you bring stuff for a few days. I'll clear you some space in my drawers."

And there it was, an offer that Nick had been wanting to make for at least a week and a half but had rejected because _you'll sound like a girl. _

But Greg just smiled an enormous smile and nodded his acceptance of Nick's proposal. "Ok."

* * *

Nick was standing in the middle of his sitting room when Greg dragged his travel bag and suit-carrier through the door.

"Everything ok?" Greg asked, dropping his stuff.

Nick looked at him, face blank. "Hmm?"

"I said, " Greg went to his side and wrapped his arms around Nick, " 'everything ok?' "

Nick shook his head against the softness of Greg's shirt. "I don't know. There was a weird message on my answer phone from my nephew Bill, asking me to call. I was just wondering if the family grapevine has already outed me to all my nieces and nephews."

Greg frowned. "Bill's your brother Bill's son right?"

Nick nodded. "Yeah. Bill's my oldest brother and Bill Jr was born when I was 12. He used to follow me around like a puppy when his family visited the ranch. He's at medical school in Chicago now."

Greg considered this. "Another Dallas refugee?"

Nick tightened his arms around Greg's waist. "He went through a goth phase in high school. He was a really great kid, but his father just wouldn't get off his case. Bill Jr was pre-med at SMU. We kind of lost touch when he was in college, but I know that Bill and his wife Andrea visited all the time." He sighed. "My brother's a hard ass. I couldn't blame BJ for wanting to get away from them."

Greg's lips twitched. "BJ?"

Nick swatted Greg's butt. "Don't. This is my nephew we're talking about."

Greg ran his hands lightly down Nick's back. "Are you going to call him back?"

Nick shrugged. "I'd like to know what he knows, first. This could just be a coincidence."

Nick's cellphone rang, startling them both. Nick wriggled it out of his pocket and looked at the screen. "It's Annie." He flipped the phone open. "Hi, Annie. What's up?"

Greg made an _I'll get started on cooking _gesture and loped to the kitchen. Pulling the ingredients out of the fridge for huevos rancheros, he glanced over the breakfast bar at Nick pacing the sitting room floor.

"Annie, slow down. What happened?" Nick was running one hand through his hair.

He listened to the answer, biting his lip. Greg hunted in a cupboard for corn tortillas.

"But what does that have to do with BJ?" Nick sounded confused.

Annie's response made Nick sit down on the sofa with a thump. "But I would never – Oh, God, Annie. Is that really what they think of me?" His voice cracked and Greg closed the cabinet door, concern on his face.

"They actually asked him?" Nick's voice was thick with tears. "Oh, God. Oh, God."

Greg walked round the breakfast bar and sat down on the sofa next to Nick, lacing his fingers through Nick's.

"Well, of course he said I didn't –" Nick's eyes were closed.

"Annie, how can I not take this personally? This is what my family think of me."

Greg tightened his grip as Nick sagged against the sofa.

"Yeah, I'd appreciate that." His voice sounded small. "I love you, too."

Flipping the phone shut, Nick dropped it on the coffee table. He put his head in his hands. Greg could see the dust motes dancing in a sunbeam just over Nick's shoulder.

"Nicky, what did she say?"

Nick let out a shuddering breath. "I don't know if I can even –"

Greg pulled Nick towards him until Nick's head was resting on his chest and they were half-sprawling on the sofa. Nick's body was tight and angry.

"It sounds like Momma pretty much freaked out."

Greg looked down at Nick, but his eyes were closed.

"What happened?"

"She got my brothers and sisters together for a family meeting. Annie wasn't there, because she's so close to her due date and completely exhausted. She doesn't know exactly what happened, but Bill went home and spoke to Andrea and then the two of them phoned BJ to ask him if, quote, anything inappropriate had ever happened between us." Nick's voice was sardonic.

Greg's mouth fell open. "Bill thinks you might have molested BJ?"

Nick opened his eyes. "That was their big fear. I guess they've asked their other kids, too. Although Bill went on to have four girls, so maybe he thinks their virtue is safe from me."

"But that's –"

"Yeah."

"Don't they know you at all?" Greg's voice was despairing.

Nick sat up. "I can't do this right now."

"Nicky," Greg implored.

Nick looked at Greg. "I can't even process the fact that my parents and at least one of my brothers and sisters thinks I'm some predatory pedophile. I just can't do it."

Greg's face was a mask of concern.

"I need to get out of here. Can we go to your apartment?" Nick asked. "We can pick up takeout on the way."

"Of course we can. We can go wherever you need us to go."

* * *

They'd eaten pancakes in bed with the TV on and lights dimmed; watching an episode of _Friends _they'd both seen before. Greg was just starting to drift into sleep when he felt Nick's hand skim his stomach and dip below the waistband of his boxer shorts. He grabbed Nick's wrist.

"Nicky, do you think that's a good idea?"

"I just want to be inside you." Nick's voice was empty.

Greg slipped his arm behind Nick's shoulders.

"You think a bit of wham-bam-thank-you-sir is going to make you feel better?"

He saw Nick blink in the darkness. "I think it will make me feel _something._"

Greg let go of Nick's wrist. "Ok, then."

Nick's mouth pressed down on his, demanding and sloppy. Normally gentle, Nick rolled Greg roughly onto his back and pressed his body on top of Greg's. He stretched out a hand and began fumbling in the bedside table for the lube.

Greg raised an eyebrow. "Skipping the appetizer and going straight to the entrée?"

"Shut up." Nick's voice was urgent. His hand grabbed something in the drawer and yanked it out. He looked at it in the half-light and then slid off Greg, turning on the bedside lamp.

"What the fuck, man?"

Greg looked up, confused and slightly dazzled by the light. Nick was holding a set of leather handcuffs. His face was twisted into a grimace.

Greg sat up, propping himself on his elbows. Cursing himself for not hiding those away in his _scary things Nick doesn't need to see right now, and maybe never_, box.

"Nicky –"

"_This _is the kind of shit you like? Having people tied up and scared and helpless in your bed?" Nick had climbed out of the bed and pulled on his boxer shorts. He followed that with jeans and a shirt.

Greg shook his head and sat up completely, pulling the sheets up to his chest. "Nicky, that isn't what those are."

"I can't –" Nick's face was stricken. He turned and all but ran out of Greg's bedroom.

Thinking for a moment, Greg climbed out of bed and into his own clothes. When he walked into his sitting room, Nick was sitting on the floor with his back to the wall. He looked up when Greg came in, eyes red-rimmed.

"Are you ok?" Greg's voice was soft.

Nick shrugged, defensively.

Greg sat down next to him on the floor. "Is it ok if I touch you?" His voice was tight with concern.

Nick let out a gasping sob. He nodded his head.

Greg wrapped his arms round Nick and started to rock him backwards and forwards. Nick was really crying now, tears streaming down his face.

"I'm so sorry, baby," Greg whispered. "I should have thrown those freaking things away." He dropped a kiss on the top of Nick's head. "I didn't mean for this to happen."

Nick was hanging on to Greg, sobs wracking his body.

"It's ok," Greg said, stroking his back. "You're totally safe. It's ok. I love you and you're ok."

Nick tried to say something, but he was crying too hard to be intelligible. Greg rubbed Nick's back until eventually the sobs slowed and then stopped.

"What were you trying to say, Nicky?"

Nick scrubbed at his face with his hands. "I can't believe what they think I'm capable of." His voice was rough.

"Nicky – "

"What, Greg?" Nick shook off Greg's arms. "This is the reality of what they think I did to BJ. _This. _Freaking out worse than being buried alive or having a sociopathic nutbar living in my attic could ever induce. Fucking months of therapy and I'm still scared of ghosts."

"Will you stop being so hard on yourself?" The sharpness in Greg's voice surprised him as much as Nick.

"What?"

"You heard me." Greg shook his head. "Nicky, your parents did something pretty fucking awful this past week and your brother has just propelled himself right to the second spot on my people-who-are-alive shitlist. That doesn't negate all the amazing things that you've done in the last few months."

"Amazing things?" Nick sounded genuinely confused, and it made Greg want to squeeze him in a hug until his breath left his body.

"Coming out to yourself, coming out at work, coming out to your family, and resisting my bullshit to start a totally functional, sexual relationship that is approaching its seven week anniversary." Greg swallowed. "While Annie's been brewing a new life this last eight months and change, so have you. You're a fucking rockstar, man, and I love you so much I could burst."

Nick leaned his head on Greg's shoulder. "I don't deserve you."

Greg smiled. "Yeah, I know. But until Brad Pitt dumps Angelina Jolie and realises that he bats for our team, I'll have to do."

Nick shook his head. "I'd choose you every day and twice on Sunday." His voice was sleepy. "I love you, man."

* * *

"Shall I take the body?" Grissom peered at Nick over the top of his glasses.

The body of a woman was lying on the bed in front of them, hands stretched over her head and fastened to the top of the bed with handcuffs. She was covered in blood and the air in the room was rich with the scent of iron.

The body was wearing nothing but a satin bra. Nick and Grissom had stepped over the matching panties at the door of the bedroom.

"Nick?"

"Hmm? Oh, sure. I'll start with entries and exits."

"PD have taken the husband away for questioning and cleared the house and grounds. They'll be maintaining a perimeter."

Nick glanced sharply at Grissom, but his face revealed nothing. They always told him this now; how safe the scene was that he was processing, and that the police department would be there to protect him.

"I'll get on it."

It was hours later, when Nick was hunched over a footprint in one of the flowerbeds circling the house, that Grissom appeared and suggested they take a water break. They leaned against the trunk of Grissom's truck, a water bottle dangling from Nick's hand.

"Penny for your thoughts, Nick?"

Nick half-smiled. "I'm not sure they're even worth that, Griss." He bounced his half-empty water bottle against his leg. "I was just thinking about how many of our homicide vics are handcuffed to something when they're found and how maybe people should be less trusting."

Grissom nodded soberly. _One of the best things about Grissom, _Nick thought, _is that he never laughs at you unless you mean to be funny. _

"Lady Heather would argue that in cases like these, neither the perpetrator or the victim really knew each other."

Nick snorted. "Which is great and all, except how could you possibly know that you know someone well enough to decide if having yourself tied up and helpless is the best plan?"

Grissom considered that. "Lady Heather would argue that the person who is tied up isn't the helpless one. They're the one with the safety word who can make things stop at any time."

Nick's jaw was tight. "Or get a can of sharp force trauma opened on them."

Grissom studied Nick's face. "It's not for everyone. I can see with your experience that you might not see any merit in it at all."

An icy shiver ran up Nick's spine before he could stop it, before he could realise that Grissom meant being buried alive by Walter Gordon and that Grissom didn't, _couldn't_ know about Mark.

Grissom frowned slightly. "I'm sorry, Nick. I didn't mean to –"

"It's ok." Nick pasted on a smile. "I need to take a cast of that footprint."

* * *

Nick was logging the evidence from the homicide when the receptionist found him and told him that there was a personal visitor waiting to see him.

He looked at his watch. "It's the middle of the night. Did they say what they wanted?"

She shook her head. "Just that he wanted to stay until Nick Stokes came back in from the field." She smiled. "He sounded like you."

Nick finished squaring the evidence away and then headed towards reception. If the visitor was a fellow Texan then it had to be a family member or childhood friend. _God, I really don't need this tonight._

His mouth fell open as he rounded the reception desk and saw who was sitting on one of the uncomfortable waiting room chairs.

"Bill Jr?"

"Uncle Nicky." His nephew climbed stiffly to his feet and stood there, arms hanging by his sides. Nick took a step towards him.

BJ bit his lip. "I'm sorry to disturb you at work, but I got here and realised I didn't know your address and you weren't in the phone book. I didn't want to phone my psycho parents and I couldn't get hold of Auntie Annie." He paused. "I hope you don't mind but I had to come see you."


	8. Didn't count on pain

**Chapter eigh: Didn't count on pain **

**Warning: **domestic violence and family dysfunction.

***

Nick stood in the middle of the crime lab's reception, shock creeping up his spine like a lizard.

"It's the middle of my shift, BJ. I can take a quick break, but we'll need to go outside. Unescorted visitors aren't allowed in the crime lab."

His nephew twisted his hands nervously. "That's ok."

"Wait here. I'll get us some water from the breakroom."

They made their way outside in silence and once they were leaning against the rough walls of the lab, BJ rummaged in his pockets and brought out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

Nick frowned. "Since when do you smoke?"

BJ shrugged. "Key part of the med student diet. Along with coffee and Skittles."

Nick raised an eyebrow. "All the major food groups?"

BJ grinned at him, and Nick remembered how adorable he had been as a baby with his shock of blond hair. "Skittles have fruit juice in them."

"Yeah." Nick took a swig from his bottle of water and tried to ignore the fact that the smoke from BJ's cigarette was making his eyes sting. "So why are you here, BJ?"

"Bachelor party. One of my fellow med students is getting married." BJ picked a stray piece of tobacco out of his mouth. "He's kind of an asshole. I suspect it's a starter marriage so he can get his wife to pay him through medical school before trading her in for a fresh model."

Nick looked at his nephew, leaning casually against the crime lab wall on one foot; knee jutting out in front of him. _When did he get so cynical?_

"No, I mean why are you _here_?"

"I couldn't come to Vegas and not see my _favorite_ uncle, could I?" As if his bitterness was echoing in his own ears BJ looked away, towards the road where cars were blaring music into the orange-tinged Vegas night sky.

"BJ, are you drunk?"

BJ considered. "I had a few drinks with the rest of the guys. They were going off to find hookers but that's not really my thing."

"You have a girlfriend?"

BJ darted a quick glance at his uncle. "Well, yeah, but I also have a conscience. I worked an OB/GYN rotation at a free clinic in Chicago. What I saw wasn't exactly _Pretty Woman._"

Nick looked at his shoes. "Yeah."

BJ blew a stream of smoke at the lamp that lit up the outside of the crime lab.

"My parents asked if you'd done stuff to me." He had clearly tried for casual and missed. The tension was vibrating in his voice.

Nick felt his mouth dry up. "Annie told me."

BJ carefully avoided looking at him. "Did you hurt some other kid? Is that why they asked?"

Nick felt like he'd been punched. "Jesus, _no._"

BJ pushed himself off the wall and flicked his cigarette away. "So why _did _they ask? Just shooting the breeze? Flipped through my iTunes playlist and wanted to know if that _Unclefucker _song from the South Park soundtrack had a special, personal meaning for me?"

Nick winced. "They didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

Nick sighed. "I wrote to your grandmother and told her I was gay. This, apparently, is what they think I mean by that."

BJ froze and then threw his head back and laughed. "You're kidding?"

Nick shook his head. "I wish I were."

"Fuck, that's ridiculous." BJ's shoulders slumped and he dug in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes. "I've been imagining all these scenarios." He flicked a flame from his lighter. "Caitlin came to a party at my apartment last year. She wants to go to Northwestern in a couple of years, follow in Zoe's footsteps."

"Yeah, I got the family Christmas letter." Nick's voice was bland.

"So you'll have noticed that the three children of Bill and Andrea Stokes currently in college have escaped pretty far away from the old homestead?"

Nick nodded.

"At the party, Caitlin took a couple of bumps of coke with asshole groom-to-be Jeremy. I could have killed him. Fuck knows what they cut that shit with and giving drugs to sixteen year old girls is pretty sketchy. Anyway, she totally freaked out and I spent the last couple of hours of the party sitting on the fire escape with her while she cried."

Nick looked at his nephew in concern.

BJ took another drag on his cigarette. "She was talking about how fucked up our family was, but she wasn't making a lot of sense. When Mom and Dad called, I just thought –"

He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I'm _really _fucking sorry. You've never been anything but good to us."

Nick sipped his water. "Nothing to be sorry for, man. If it had been Annie I would have done the same thing. Thought the same thing."

BJ looked away. "If I'd really been looking out for them I would have gone to medical school in Texas."

Something twisted in Nick's chest. "Why?"

BJ's jaw clenched. "To keep an eye on them. Run interference. Give them someplace to go. I don't know, man. Just be _there._"

"No, I mean _why?" _

BJ cut Nick a look. "He's your brother."

Nick tried to remember what Bill was like with his children. He could remember them all visiting the ranch, laughing and running around. He could remember visits to Bill and Andrea's house and their flawless hospitality. Barbeques and formal dinners. The beautiful dishes of food that Andrea would bring to the ranch for family Christmases and Thanksgivings. The pride in Bill's voice as he spoke of his children's academic and sporting successes. But also his clear and evident disappointment when BJ started dressing like a goth and when Zoe joined the Democratic Party.

Nick shook his head, stomach plunging like he'd just tipped over the edge of a rollercoaster.

BJ flicked his second cigarette away. "Caitlin's top rode up when she was crying on my fire escape. She had a bruise on her back the size of my fist."

"Jesus Christ." Nick felt a wave of nausea go through him.

"He broke Zoe's rib once. At the time she said that she fell off Dancer, but she told me the truth last year. She was wasted on tequila and telling me how funny it was because the ER nurse didn't believe her horse-riding story and gave her a lecture on dating violence."

"Hilarious." Nick's voice was dark.

"Yeah, and a real good sign that none of us talk about it until we're chemically altered." He looked at the road again. "I was working in the OB/GYN clinic then and it made me think. I asked her if Dad had ever – you know – and she looked at me like I was having some kind of psychotic break." His voice cracked. "How fucked up is it when you're relieved that your Dad didn't rape your sister and only pushed her to the ground and then kicked her in the ribs."

Nick felt a rush of anger so intense that he was scared, for a moment, that his heart would actually stop.

BJ flipped the top of his cigarettes open. Nick raised his hand, intending to reach out to close the pack; to stop his nephew from chain smoking. BJ took a quick, unsteady pace back into the wall, hitting his shoulder. Nick's hand flew to his mouth.

BJ closed his eyes. Breathed out. Opened them. "I'm sorry. That was really – insulting."

Nick leaned against the wall beside him, carefully leaving space between them. "It's ok, BJ. God, you don't have to apologise. The first time that Greg – that's my boyfriend - and I had an argument he waved his hand to make a point and I ducked. He was completely horrified, but it's hard to get rid of that muscle memory." He looked at his nephew "I know it's not personal."

(He remembered the look on Greg's face. How he'd stopped shouting like a tap had been turned off and his face had twisted as though he might cry. He'd brought his hands to Nick's face like he was holding cotton candy between his palms and leaned their foreheads together. "I'm sorry, baby", he'd said over and over as if it was a prayer and eventually Nick had kissed him, crushing the words with his mouth.)

BJ looked at him like he'd never seen him before. "Grandpa—?"

Nick nodded, jerkily. "Yeah."

BJ licked his lips. "And all the others?"

Nick shook his head. "Not the girls. Your Dad and Alex, sure." He paused. "But that's no excuse for what he did to you and your sisters, ok?"

BJ shrugged that off. "'Not the girls'." He rolled the words around his mouth like a rich Chablis. "Because that would be wrong?"

Nick thought of Annie crying in the treehouse the day he was beaten for choosing trail riding over the rodeo skills elective at summer camp, and wondered who had really drawn the short straw. Tried to imagine how it would have felt to sit alone in the shade of the tree with the boards of the treehouse rough against his back, and to know that his father was hurting his sister. Couldn't. _Jesus._

"It's _all _wrong, BJ."

"Yeah."

Nick's beeper buzzed. He looked at it. "BJ, I have to get back inside."

His nephew straightened up. "Well, thanks for seeing me. Take care, man."

Nick looked at him in confusion. "BJ, this conversation isn't over. Can you come to my apartment for lunch?"

BJ jammed his hands in his pockets. "Won't you be asleep?"

Nick swallowed. "I have the next couple of days off. I can stay up and have lunch with you. Can we talk more about this?"

BJ scuffed his shoe against cement. "Sure. Ok. The guys were just going to sit around the pool until late, tomorrow. We're staying at the Hard Rock."

Nick snorted. "Of course you are." He scribbled his address on one of his cards. "This is the address. It's a short cab ride from the Strip."

BJ put the card in his pocket. "Thanks."

Nick wrapped his nephew in a fierce hug. "I'll see you later."

* * *

"Jesus, Nicky." Greg's fingers moved absently through Nick's hair.

"I know." Nick was lying on his back on his sofa, with his head in Greg's lap.

"Do you think he's going to be ok?"

Nick shrugged. "I think he feels guilty as hell. Especially about his two youngest sisters." He drew his fingers across his eyes. "God, how did I not notice? Why didn't BJ tell me?"

Greg's fingers stilled in Nick's hair. "Don't."

"Yeah. You're right. They all did a great job covering up for Bill. Just like Bill did a great job covering up for my Daddy."

Greg's fingers resumed their stroking. "He can't excuse himself by blaming your father."

Nick's face was somber. "Yeah, it doesn't help though, does it? Who knows. Maybe if I had kids I would end up doing the same to them."

Greg let his hand rest on Nick's forehead. "I don't believe that. Can you imagine having a daughter? And watching her grow up and go to school and become someone with interests and friends and original ideas all of her own? And then can you imagine pushing her to the ground, and standing over her and kicking her ribs hard enough to break them?"

Nick's mouth became a hard line.

"Because I can't imagine doing that to a grown man that I hated, let alone my own child."

"Me either." Nick's voice was raw.

"What are you going to do?"

"I have an idea, but I need to run it past BJ."

* * *

The doorbell rang.

BJ looked as nervous as Nick felt. He had been wearing a suit the previous evening but the jeans, t-shirt and sneakers he wore then accentuated his youth.

Greg looked him over with interest. He'd spoken to Annie on the phone, but BJ was the first other Stokes that Greg had met. There was something of Nick in the set of his shoulders and the line of his jaw, although BJ was blond where Nick was dark.

He stepped in to Nick's apartment, looking around him. He looked at Greg shyly, flicked a quick glance up and down him.

"I'm Greg." Greg held his hand out.

"Billy. Nice to meet you man." He shook Greg's hand.

"Billy?" Nick's eyebrows were raised.

"Sure," BJ grinned. "Ever tried explaining to your SMU fraternity brothers why your nickname is the same as their favourite sexual act? 'Billy' kind of stuck after that."

They'd all laughed, then, and all of a sudden everything was ok. They'd sat round Nick's small table, the three of them, and talked about school and science and medicine. BJ had been funny and charming; complimenting Nick and showing an interest in Greg. Although Nick knew that people weren't responsible for family, he felt proud that this amiable guy with a social conscience was his nephew.

They were sipping the coffee that Greg had made when BJ looked Greg in the eye and apologised for his parents' reaction.

"They're crazy, my parents. I don't want you to think everyone from the great state of Texas is a homophobe."

Greg looked at Nick and then back to BJ. "It's ok, man. I've spoken to Annie so I'm confident there's some rational genes there as well, even in the clan Stokes."

A shadow crossed BJ's face. "Yeah. Although my parents could definitely stand another ride on the clue train."

Nick put his hand on BJ's arm and Greg took that as his signal to leave.

"Nicky, I have a few errands to run and then I'm going to crash for a bit. Give me a call when you wake up?" He pushed his chair back from the table. "Billy, it was a real pleasure. I hope we'll see you again real soon."

BJ stood up and smiled. "You too, man. It's nice to have another uncle who didn't vote for Bush." He stepped forward and hugged Greg, who raised his eyebrows at Nick over BJ's shoulder. _Uncle?, _he mouthed. Nick grinned at him.

Greg hesitated over how to say goodbye to Nick in front of BJ but Nick leaned towards him, sliding his hand down Greg's hair to the back of his neck and kissed him chastely but affectionately on the lips. "See you later, dude."

"He's a great guy," said BJ, as the door closed behind Greg with a click.

"He is."

"I really am sorry about my parents."

"It's not your fault," Nick said, easily. "My Momma seems to have hit the panic button that kicked all of this off. And I'm kind of glad she did, because otherwise we wouldn't have had the chance to talk about this other stuff."

BJ sat down awkwardly on the edge of Nick's sofa.

"Do you want a beer?" Nick asked.

"Sure."

He went to the kitchen and brought back two beers and an ashtray.

"It's ok to smoke in here?"

Nick nodded. "Sure." He sat down.

BJ slipped a cigarette out of his pack and lit it. Nick watched the smoke curl into his sofa and wondered how long it would take for the smell to fade.

"BJ, I've got an idea I wanted to run past you."

"Ok."

"I want to write to your father."

BJ's head jerked up. "No way, man."

Nick put his hand on BJ's arm. "I want to write to your father and say that if I ever hear that he's hurt any of his children, I'll be asking LVPD to inform Dallas PD's Internal Affairs department that they suspect him of committing a crime. And that he'll have his blue brothers all over his house."

BJ was silent and still.

"I know this is hard and scary, but I want you to get in touch with Caitlin and tell her that you're worried about Lizzie and that she has to tell you if your father hurts Lizzie. And I want you to get in touch with Lizzie and tell her you're worried about Caitlin, and to do the same."

Nick took a breath. "And I'm going to speak to Annie, and ask her to keep a closer eye on them both."

BJ shook his head. "I tried to get Caitlin to talk to me about it when she came up to visit. She wouldn't."

Nick sighed. "I never told anyone about my Daddy until I told Greg. I didn't even realise there was a problem with it. But we both know there is. And I know it doesn't sit well with you that your two baby sisters are the only ones in the firing line. And that your Daddy seems to be smart enough to only cause bruises where no one will see them. You're nearly a doctor, BJ. You know that's where the major organs are."

BJ was quiet. "Yeah."

Nick looked at his nephew. "I think this way, where they're looking out for each other is the best way. And Bill's got way too much pride to want to get into it with me about how I know."

"I don't know if I can get them to even talk to me enough about this to agree to watch each other's backs, but I'll try." BJ's voice was all over the place.

"You're a good guy, BJ."

BJ scrubbed his eyes with his sleeve. "Please don't."

Nick slid his arm along BJ's shoulders. "I know you probably haven't heard that enough." _If at all. _

BJ pushed his arm away. "Please. I will lose it if you don't stop being nice to me."

"BJ, losing it is perfectly ok. Lord knows that this very sofa has seen enough losing it to last it a lifetime." He made his voice gentle. " Losing it doesn't make you less of a man."

BJ's face crumpled and he started, soundlessly, to cry. At first he just sat poker straight on the sofa but after a few moments he turned into Nick's chest and wrapped his arms around his neck. Nick took a deep breath as he folded his nephew in his arms and thought, not for the first time, that he could cheerfully wring his brother's neck.

* * *

"It's so weird, Greggo," Nick said, gesturing at the ceiling. "I thought coming out to my family would separate me from them, but it's actually made it possible for me to relate better to the people I want to be close to. Like Annie and BJ."

He smiled in the dark. "It's liberating. Knowing I have no secrets means I can just do whatever feels like the best thing to do."

Greg dropped a kiss on his shoulder. "Happy as I am for you, baby, I've now heard this story three times. I think we can put that mouth of yours to better use."

Nick snorted. "God, are you still not satisfied?"

The phone by the bed started to ring.

"What does it feel like?" Greg asked, pushing himself against Nick's leg."

"Shush there, horndog." Nick picked up the phone. "Hello?"


	9. Ripples come and ripples go

**Chapter nine: Ripples come and ripples go **

**A/N: **Although the Nevada Supreme Court is obviously a real institution, there has never been any judge in it or any other court called Justice McGregor Brown.

*****  
**

"Nicky, have you seen my blue shirt? I want to wear it to work and I could have sworn that it was here in my drawer." Greg was on his knees in front of the drawers in Nick's bedroom.

Nick walked back into the room, rolling his eyes. "G, you have fourteen blue shirts. Which one are we talking about?"

Greg put his hand on his hip. "My navy Hugo Boss polo shirt."

Nick grinned. "We got that a little, uh, dirty last week. It's in the laundry basket."

"Damn." Greg frowned. "This living between two apartments is seriously cramping my style."

Nick pulled a green shirt out of Greg's drawer. "Wear this."

Greg quirked an eyebrow. "Really? I always think the sleeves on this are too short. Isn't it a little bit eighties?"

Nick smiled. "You were wearing that the first time you fucked me." He reddened under Greg's stare. "Well, you were wearing it just _before _that."

(They'd talked about it so much beforehand that at the moment of truth Greg had hovered over Nick, holding himself up, and felt almost dizzy with fear that what he was about to do would be a painful reminder and not an act of love.

Underneath him, Nick's dark eyes had been ablaze with a desire and trust that was so humbling it took the air out of the room. Greg had sunk into him and Nick's breath had caught in his throat and he'd closed his eyes and Greg had hesitated, veins started to flood with horror. But then Nick's gasp had turned into the dirtiest, sexiest groan that Greg had ever heard and he'd found his rhythm, had seen Nick come hard and then open his brown eyes wide, lashes tipped with wetness.

Afterwards, he'd rested one hand against Greg's sweat-slicked chest as Greg kissed his hair. "Thanks, man, for making it good for me."

And Greg thought he might cry.)

Greg pulled the green shirt over his head. "I just need to pour the coffee into our travel mugs, and then we're good to go."

* * *

When Nick arrived at the Bellagio, Catherine was already in the most impressive of its many suites. Justice McGregor Brown was sitting in a club chair in a small sitting room off the main reception area, his navy pinstripe suit immaculate despite the lateness of the hour.

Catherine swivelled to greet him. "Justice Brown, this is CSI Nicholas Stokes." Nick nodded at the Justice. "He and I will be photographing the crime scene, lifting fingerprints and gathering any trace evidence."

"Thank you, Ms Willows." The Justice inclined his head graciously, as if thanking Catherine for bringing him a cup of tea and a scone. Most of his scalp was visible through his fluffy white hair.

Nick's gaze rested on a series of glossy photos on a low table, clearly taken from the Bellagio's security system. They showed the Justice and two companions together in the lift and then outside the suite's door. The woman, who looked to be in her late twenties, was wearing a white Marilyn Monroe style dress that showed most of her tanned, slender back. Her dark, glossy hair was piled in curls on her head and the slice of her lips that was visible as she glanced over her shoulder was painted deep red. _Your standard issue femme fatale, _Nick thought. The man looked a few years older, dressed in a soberly expensive suit. _Fun, but not too much fun. _

"I suppose you think I'm an old goat," said Justice Brown, following Nick's eyes to the photos.

"Sir?" Nick looked up.

Justice Brown hooked his fingers inside the watch pocket of his vest. "Giving those young people the time of day."

"Sir, can I ask why they were here?"

"Why, to steal my laptop, young man. Isn't that obvious?" Justice Brown rested his chin on his chest. "No one has ever had to tender their resignation from the Nevada Supreme Court because of a scandal before. I can assure you that if the contents of that laptop are revealed then I _shall_ be the first."

Nick allowed a look of sympathy to flash across his face. "Sir, can I ask why you invited them to your suite?"

The Justice sighed. "She made me think of Daisy. 'That's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool'."

Nick thought for a moment. Blinked. "Daisy Buchanan?"

The Justice smiled, sharply. "I told you I was an old goat."

Nick looked through the doorway into the main reception room of the suite. He could hear the ice melting in the bucket, clinking sharply against the metal. He could see the champagne bottle, floating bottom up. _A third of a bottle of champagne isn't enough to make an experienced socialite like Justice Brown pass out on his bed like a sleepy toddler, though._

He turned his attention back to the Justice. "Sir, were there any pills?"

The Justice weighed his words carefully. "What do you mean?"

Nick gestured through the open doorway. "Y'all were having a glass of champagne together. They were both beautiful and settling in for the night—" He allowed his voice to trail off.

The Justice barked a laugh. "Very decorously put." He put his hand in his trouser pocket and brought out a small glassine bag with blue pills in it. "I took one of these at the young man's urging."

Nick took the bag from the Justice with his gloved hand. "Thank you, Sir. We'll find out what's in these. It might help us find them. And your laptop."

* * *

"That was nicely done," said Catherine, after the suite had been cleared of everyone but the CSIs.

"What?" Nick looked at his coworker, who was taking her camera out of its case and preparing to take the first volley of scene photos.

"He would never have told me about the Viagra. Or whatever it actually is."

The corner of Nick's mouth quirked up. "Some men just feel bad talking about that stuff with women."

Catherine shrugged. "I think it's more than that. I think he appreciated the way you brought it up so he could tell you without 'fessing up to wanting a threeway with Bonnie and Clyde. You're a class act, Nicky Stokes."

Nick shrugged off the compliment, smiling.

Catherine delicately rubbed her nose. "Nicky, after we've finished up here can I talk to you about something?" She sounded hesitant. "Something kinda personal?"

Nick looked across at her. "Sure thing, Catherine."

* * *

They were almost back at the crime lab when Catherine spoke.

"So, Lindsey and I were talking last night at dinner and she was asking why she hadn't seen you in such a long time." Catherine's hands were twisting in her lap.

"I'm sorry—"

She shook her head at Nick. "No, that's not the point of the story, Nicky. I mean, it would of course be nice to see you but—" She bit her lip. "I explained that you and Greg had started seeing each other and that people in new relationships spend a lot of time together and she started to cry and ran off to her room."

Catherine drew one finely-boned hand across her forehead. "I've never seen her like that before. Even after Eddie—" She sighed. "She kept saying 'Please don't hate me, Mom. Please don't hate me.' Really great for my self-esteem as a mother."

Nick shifted in his seat. "Catherine, you're a great mom."

She smiled wanly. "Still not the point of the story, but thanks, Nicky." She hesitated. "She eventually told me that she thinks she's a lesbian."

Nick's eyebrows went up.

"I don't know how to help her. I don't know what to say to her." Catherine sounded more desperate than Nick had ever heard her; trademark flippancy entirely absent from her voice.

"What _did _you say to her?"

"I said that I loved her and that I just wanted her to be with people who made her happy, whomever they were."

Nick felt a brief pang of envy, and then chastised himself for being jealous of a confused fourteen year old girl.

"I feel guilty, though, because I felt like I was lying to her. I mean," Catherine clarified, "I feel like her life will be a lot harder if she's gay and I want her life to be as easy as possible. I just don't know how to help her figure this out."

"Catherine, I think you said exactly the right thing." Nick indicated and pulled in to the crime lab parking area. "And you're right, it _is _harder in some ways being gay. But it's hardest of all living a lie."

"Will you talk to her?"

Nick blinked. "Will I talk to your daughter about her sexual orientation?"

"She knows you."

Nick shook his head. "Not like that, she doesn't. If you want to suggest that she talks to me then I'm happy to go for it if she wants to, but I think she'd be better off talking to someone from the GLBT center teen group.

"The GLBT center teen group?" Catherine echoed.

"Sure." Nick said. "Do you want me to get some information for you? They'll have a website, but I can talk to Greg's friend James. He works there."

"Ok." Catherine sounded unsure. She licked her lips. "Nicky, can I ask you something about yourself?"

"Sure." He looked at her, but her eyes were anchored on her denimed legs.

"Did you know you were gay when you were fourteen?"

He grinned. "Yep. That was the year I pined for Sammy Lowenstein. The older brother of my friend David. God damn that boy was something else."

Catherine wasn't smiling. "Nicky, can I ask you something you might not want to answer?"

His stomach flipped. "Okay."

She looked out of the window for a full minute until Nick's skin was crawling with anticipation of something unpleasant. "Your babysitter. Do you think—"

"That she put me off women for life?" Nick's voice was cool.

Catherine shuddered. "I know that sounds awful. I just suddenly got so scared that Eddie—"

He took her hand. "If this is the only reason that you think Eddie hurt Lindsey then you're looking for answers in the wrong place. People are born gay, Catherine, they don't get turned gay by some bad experience."

She dropped her head. "Yeah, I kind of know that really. I just don't want to find out that I fell down on the job any more than I already know about."

He squeezed her hand. "You're a great Mom. Lindsey's lucky to have you."

She looked up then, at his wistful tone, but Nick had already let go of her hand and was opening the door of the Denali.

* * *

"Do we know what those blue pills are, yet?"

Hodges looked up. "Hello to you too, Nick."

Nick held his hands up in a half-apology. "Do we know what those blue pills are, yet?"

Hodges pursed his lips. "20 mg of zolpidem."

Nick frowned. "Zolpidem? That's a sleeping pill, right?"

Hodges grinned. "Bingo. It's an imidazopyridine. Very similar to a benzo, but much more successful at inducing sleep than a benzo. The Air Force gives them to its pilots after missions so they can get some rest. 10 mg is the recommended daily dose, so its no wonder that 20 mg had the vic flat on his back."

"Was there anything else in the pills?"

"The zolpidem comes from two Ambien pills, which are prescribed in such large quantities they might be difficult to trace. However, Viagra pills are pretty large, so the zolpidem was bulked out with waxy maize starch."

"Waxy maize starch?"

Hodges raised an eyebrow. "It's the hot new fast-acting carbohydrate for your gym bunny types."

"Any way we can trace it?"

"It's sold in pretty much every gym and health food store in the country. There are two manufacturers, and both sell nationwide. Both are sending me samples so I can determine if there's a chromatography match or probable match with our sample. It won't narrow things down much, though."

"What about the coating on the pills? It looked pretty impressively real."

Hodges cut him a look. "Know that for a fact do you, Nick? Little Nick not always up to the job?"

Nick reddened. "_Jesus, _Hodges." He rolled his eyes. "Could you maybe just tell me what they used?"

"Commercial paint, would you believe? A brand that is sold in all of the trade places selling to contractors. Professional job, though. They'd even scratched 'Pfizer' on the pills to make them look branded."

Nick considered this. "So Bonnie and Clyde might have bought these from some pros?"

Hodges shrugged. "You're the CSI."

* * *

Nick was staring down the microscope at some fibers he had lifted from the suite at the Bellagio when he became aware of someone leaning against the doorframe of the trace lab. He looked up. Catherine. Leaning on one elbow in the doorway like a model showing off some couture pants.

"We just need to store the unprocessed evidence on this one, Nicky. Game over."

Nick's gaze sharpened. "Bonnie and Clyde are in custody?"

She smiled. "Archie got a clean shot of their plates from the Bellagio's security cameras. They hadn't switched cars and they were discovered by some local boys in Ely."

Nick frowned. "They went up I93? Where were they going?"

Catherine shrugged. "All Brass told me was that they recovered the laptop and that Justice Brown has been alerted. It seems that His Honor is extremely grateful. Wonder what was on that laptop."

She walked off, smirking, as Nick started to secure the fibers in an evidence bag.

* * *

James Wilkes was speaking to the receptionist when Nick and Greg arrived at the GLBT center. He straightened up when he saw them, and cast an appraising look at their joined hands.

("Hell", Greg had said, as they walked up to the front door. "If I can't hold hands with you here, then where can I?"

"As long as I don't have to blow you on the sundeck to prove my happy homo credentials." Nick's voice was dry.

He'd laughed at the considering look that slid across Greg's face.)

"Greg," James said, before he kissed him on the cheek. "To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?"

He smiled at Nick. "Nick, right?" Nick offered him his cheek, and James, smoothly hiding his look of surprise, kissed that too.

"We're here doing a little recon for a colleague," Greg explained. "She told her daughter that the reason we hadn't visited her in a while was because we were in the honeymoon phase and her daughter came out to her. Our colleague is looking for information on how to support Lindsey. She's fourteen, if that makes a difference."

Nick's phone rang, and he slid it out of his pocket. "It's Annie." He bit his lip. "Is there anywhere I can take this in private?"

James nodded and pointed. "That room over there is one of our counselling rooms. It should be free at this time of day."

"Thanks." Nick flipped open his phone. "Annie? Two seconds. I'm just going somewhere where I can talk to you in private."

"Nick's sister." Greg answered James's unasked question as soon as Nick was out of earshot. "She just had a baby yesterday and she wants Nick to be his godfather."

James chewed the inside of his cheek. "And Nick doesn't want to be responsible for providing spiritual guidance for his nephew?"

Greg sighed. "Things are really complicated with his family. He came out to them but some of them took it really, incredibly badly."

"Well, there's a club with a huge membership." He paused. "And you guys are out at work, too?"

Greg smiled. "Yeah. Some stones on my boy."

James smiled. "Sounds like. I'm happy for you two. I mean, obviously the guy is smoking hot but he seems to have character too, which is a pleasant departure."

Greg was mock-offended. "Hey, Brian had character."

"Nuh-uh. Brian had personality and abs you could grate cheese on."

Greg smiled, cheesily. "And sometimes that's enough."

They both looked up when Nick came back.

"That was quick. Everything ok?" Greg ran a hand down Nick's back.

"She's not happy with the answer 'no'." Nick half-smiled. "Typical, pig-headed Stokes. I told her we could discuss my reasons _again _later."

"Greg was saying she'd asked you to stand as godfather to your nephew." James looked at Nick levelly.

Nick wrapped his fingers around Greg's. "Yeah. I just came out to my family recently and my oldest brother freaked out and pretty much accused me of molesting his son."

James raised an eyebrow. "Ah, yes. That old confusion between 'gay' and 'pedophile'."

"Right," Nick smiled. "This is Annie's way of telling him to shove it, but I can't stand in a church where people fundamentally disapprove of what I am and promise to help her raise her son by those values."

"Is she really religious?" James asked.

"No," said Greg. "She's totally supportive of us."

Nick sighed. "It's not that straightforward. I love Annie but she doesn't see that she can sit in church with my Momma and listen to the awful, bigoted sermons about how women should know their place, and how we should keep our jeans zipped until someone has cast the demons out of us, and disregard it all. Because, superficially, she fits in with her husband and baby. And Greg and I just don't." He waved his hand, helplessly. "She doesn't see the disapproval that will come crashing down on her head and Momma's head if they find out that her son's godfather is gay."

"So fuck 'em. Fuck those disapproving people who don't know us from Adam." Greg's face was like stone.

"My Daddy sets great store by his women's position in that church." Nick's voice was quiet.

Greg's face flickered.

"They fuck you up your Mum and Dad." James broke the tense silence and his voice held enough of an edge to make Nick look closely at him.

"Philip Larkin" asked Greg. "Right?"

James arranged his face into a smile. "Yes. Anyway, you guys came in here to talk about a friend's teenager. Do you want to come back to my office and I can let you know what services we offer here?"


	10. In the river I will stay

**Chapter ten: In the river I will stay**

"There's been a serious physical assault at Garrarufa, presumably a hate crime. The victim hasn't regained consciousness." Grissom's voice was flat.

The atmosphere in Grissom's office shifted, tension thickening the air. Nick was suddenly aware of his body and felt his muscles tremble slightly with the effort of maintaining his previously casual stance. A bead of sweat slid into the hollow of his spine. His colleagues weren't helping. Their eyes were sliding all over the place like there was grease on the floor.

Greg's jaw was rigid and Nick wanted to drag his thumb up Greg's neck until it unclenched.

Grissom looked bleak. "Would it be inappropriate to ask you two to work this case? With Catherine?"

Greg snorted.

Nick looked sideways at him. "Nah, Griss, that's cool. We know the place and a lot of the regulars."

Catherine bit her lip. Thinking, presumably, about Lindsey and every parent's worst nightmare.

Sara, in a rare flash of understanding, shot Catherine a sympathetic look. "Catherine's got that case to prepare for court and we could be there until all hours. I'll do it."

"Ok." Grissom made some notes on the list of open cases that was the top sheet on his clipboard.

* * *

"What is wrong with you, man?"

Greg didn't shift his gaze from his open locker, where he was trying to get his tac vest off its hook. "Nothing."

He yanked, harder, and something ripped but the tac vest didn't come out in his hand. He kicked the locker shut. "Fuck."

He sank down onto the bench. Nick straddled it and slid his hand down Greg's back. Greg was breathing hard, like he'd just run a fast mile. "Baby, what's wrong?"

Greg looked at him, eyes shining with tears. "Are you fucking kidding me, Nick? I mean, are you really oblivious to this?" His chest heaved. "That could be me lying in Desert Palms right now. Worse, it could be you."

Nick licked his lips. "I know."

"And we're being dispatched like special envoys from Planet Pink to deal with the fallout."

"I don't think it's like that."

Greg made a disbelieving noise.

Nick smoothed his hand over Greg's thigh. "If you were at Garrarufa right now would you rather see us or Ecklie?"

Before Greg could answer, Warrick cleared his throat and Nick realised that he had been leaning against the doorway of the locker room.

Nick was about to take his hand off Greg's leg when Warrick sat down next to Greg and slung his arm casually around him.

"I get sent out to more racist assaults than any two other people in this lab combined." Warrick's eyes were locked on Greg's, their faces inches apart. "I don't think that Grissom is thinking about PR when he gives me those assignments. I figure that he's smart enough about people to realise that the vics aren't going to think I'm a white supremacist, which would take longer to get around to if he sent Nicky-boy here."

Greg's face was blank. "Yeah."

"Can't say I enjoy it, though." Warrick's voice held a tinge of bitterness. "I could do without the frequent reminder that some people want me to hurt just because of the color of my skin."

"Yeah," Greg said. "I wish people could be a bit more interested in the content of my character, too." He looked at his hands, clenched into fists in his lap. Thought about Warrick's words. "We should probably get going. If we're going."

As they gathered their things, as the tac vest in Greg's locker came free, Nick nodded his thanks to Warrick.

* * *

"Thank God this happened early in the evening, " Brass said, surveying the fifty or so clubgoers lined up against the wall. "If this had gone down a couple of hours later this place would have been packed."

"Thank _goodness_." Greg's voice teetered at the very edge of sarcasm.

Brass looked away, uncomfortable. "I spoke to the guy's doctor at Desert Palms. They can't rule out sexual assault."

Nick's face was like granite. "We need DNA swabs from all of these people."

Greg looked incredulous. "You think someone from in here did this?"

Nick shook his head. "Protocol. You start from one end, I'll start from the other."

* * *

"Are you really here to protect and serve?" Greg faintly recognised a Garrarufa regular, face twisted as he sized Greg up. "Or just waiting til you can get home to shower the gay off?"

"Give him a break, Don." The guy next to him looked Greg up and down. "He's here almost as often as we are."

Don looked at Greg, sharply. "Really? You're a friend of Dorothy?" His voice was ironic.

Greg compressed his mouth into a thin line. "Really. Although I'm pretty sure no-one's actually used that expression since 1972."

His friend smirked. Greg's eyes slid past them to the couple to their left. A man with brown hair, who looked barely out of his teens, was huddled in to the side of his boyfriend. He had his eyes closed, and his boyfriend was whispering something in his ear.

Greg shifted so that he was standing in front of them. "I'm CSI Sanders from the Vegas Crime Lab. As Detective Brass announced, we're collecting DNA from everyone here. It's just a simple cheek swab."

He uncapped an IntegriSwab. "If you could just open your mouth—"

The brown haired man gave him a nakedly terrified look and leaned backwards.

Greg frowned and kept advancing. "It's ok, sir. It just takes a second."

The brown haired man clapped his hand over his mouth and his boyfriend tightened his grip on his other hand. Greg ignored the CSI part of himself that was instantly suspicious of everyone within two clicks of a crime scene and realised that some strange authoritarian man looming over you with a swab, demanding that you open your mouth on command, would cause a surprisingly large number of people to freak the fuck out. Turning around, he waved Sara over.

"Officer, can you just give us a minute?" His boyfriend pleaded with Greg. "Please don't arrest him."

Greg smiled at the boyfriend in what he hoped was a reassuring way. "Nobody is getting arrested. It's just that my colleague, CSI Sidle, is going to take over for me for a bit while I go and attend to something else."

The boyfriend gave Greg a look of gratitude as Sara paused in front of the queue of clubgoers.

"Sara, could you take over here?" Greg hoped that she would get it.

"Sure." She flicked her glance over the trembling brown haired man and took a step towards him.

Walking away, Greg watched over his shoulder as Sara pasted on a warm smile, made herself small and unthreatening, and coaxed the sample out of him.

* * *

"Good catch." Nick looked approvingly at Greg. "That guy looked about two seconds away from a complete freakout."

"Yeah, he looked really afraid of me." Greg's face was tense. "Can't say that made me feel great about myself."

Nick reached a hand out to him and then, realising how many eyes were on them, choked the gesture off.

"You know where that comes from, Greg."

"Yeah." Greg's eyes were full of shadows.

Nick scanned over the small groups of tired patrons, buzz from their night out completely punctured by the harsh house lights and faint, but discernible, smell of industrial cleaning products. There were few things more depressing than a nightclub out of hours.

"Come on," Greg said. "We need to finish up here if we're going to make it to the airport on time."

Nick was quiet, eyes far away. It had seemed like such a good idea to go and visit his new nephew and namesake straight after his dedication at their childhood church and the reception at the Stokes' ranch. He wanted to see Annie but he couldn't face his whole family, and timing his and Greg's visit for this weekend would let them take part in baby Nicholas's special event. Thinking, though, about the fact that his family was gathered in Texas while he stood under harsh fluorescent lights processing a crime scene made him feel cold. He could almost see the lanterns that his mother hung from the porch on special days stirring idly in the summer breeze and wondered if he would ever be truly welcome at the ranch again.

"Nicky—" Greg's voice trailed off. It had all been said.

Nick picked up the kit at his feet. "Has the security camera footage been secured?"

* * *

"Hot damn, this weather is unbelievable." Nick stood his sister's kitchen sink and filled a glass with water. The back of his white t-shirt was lined with sweat and Greg shivered slightly at the thought of peeling it off him and licking the salt from his skin.

"David and I were only in the garage for fifteen minutes and I need a shower in the worst way."

"You're _from_ here," Annie was smirking at him from her seat at the kitchen table where she was burping baby Nicholas. "And you live in the middle of the desert."

Nick grinned. "Dry heat, Annie. Not like this darn swamp."

Greg swallowed a snicker. _Darn? _It was one part adorable and one part sexy as hell that Nick's accent had thickened almost as soon as they had arrived at Intercontinental.

Annie smiled down at her son fondly. "Time for you to go to sleep, little man." She lifted her head up. "Do you boys want to go sit next to the fan on the porch and have a beer? Dinner should be ready in about half an hour."

"Sounds perfect." Greg smiled. "You're a great host, Annie."

Annie made a _gee, shucks _face. "I'm the worst at this out of all of us. The youngest girl always gets the least exciting hostess errands in any Southern family and I was only just about trusted to hand round trays of the delicacies my sisters could bake."

"Kind of 'where are your britches, Scout?'"

Annie looked at Greg. "Exactly."

Nick leaned over his nephew as he lay sleepily in his mother's arms and dropped a kiss on his head. The look on his face made Greg's breath hitch in his chest. "Night, night, baby boy."

"I'm sure you'll hear from him soon enough." Annie's voice was dry. "Beer's in the fridge, boys."

* * *

"How did your talk with Annie go?" Greg had one toe on the floor of the porch and was gently moving the swing back and forward as the fan at Nick's elbow did its best to stir the warm air.

Nick took a sip from his bottle. "Ok. She's been in touch with Caitlin and Lizzie, and she thinks things have been about as good as they're likely to get." He sighed. "She got pretty upset."

"About your brother Bill?"

"Yeah, she's a new momma and pretty much repulsed by the idea of anyone hurting their child." Nick turned his head away. "She was also apologising to me for not doing anything to stop my Daddy."

Greg almost spat out his beer. "What?"

"Exactly. I don't know what she thinks she could have done. Like all 95 pounds of her was supposed to drag a grown man off me." Nick's voice was strained.

"Why is it always the people who are least to blame who feel so responsible for other people's shitty behaviour?"

Nick shrugged. "I don't know, but they do. Have you noticed how little they've talked about Nicholas's dedication party?"

"Yeah, you had to basically pin Annie down over lunch."

"It sucks that they feel like they can't talk about it just because we didn't go."

Greg drew in a breath. "Did Annie say anything about how Alex and the rest of your sisters have reacted?"

Nick made popping sounds with his finger and the mouth of the beer bottle. "Yeah, she seems to have worked the crowd like a pro. She's wasted every second that she's not doing the dirty work for some corrupt politician."

He sighed. "Alex seems genuinely indifferent, but doesn't want to fight with Daddy. Beth shoved an ex-gay organisation leaflet into Annie's hand when they were alone in the kitchen, so I'm guessing she's not joining us at Pride anytime soon. Mel and Jessica are basically horrified by Daddy and Bill but they're also really close to Momma, who seems to have shed more than a few tears over all of this."

Greg thought about that. "Are you going to get in touch with Alex, Mel and Jessica?"

Nick shrugged. "I guess so. I still don't know what I want, you know? I mean, I love my family but I'm not sure how much effort it's worth to get invited to a couple of family holidays that are going to be, in the best case scenario, pretty awkward."

"You don't have to decide today, baby. Or ever." Greg ran his fingers across the bottom of Nick's hairline, feeling the warm slickness of Nick's skin. "I'm glad that Annie's so awesome."

"She is. Thanks for making yourself scarce so I could talk to her, G. Did you have fun looking through David's record collection?"

Greg nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, he's got some pretty cool stuff. He DJd for his college radio station through his postgrads."

Nick was quiet for a moment and Greg could hear the sharp throb of cicadas in the heavy air. "I like that song about the river you guys were playing. With the saxophone."

Greg looked at him. "The Groove Armada?" He hummed a bit of the melody and Nick nodded. "That was the soundtrack to so many sunrises when I was in college."

Greg smiled, remembering bleary early mornings in apartments with records all over the floor and spilled tequila on coffee tables. Of raking through people's stash boxes looking for downers to take the edge off an ecstasy comedown. Of smoking way too many cigarettes with girls with smeared eyeliner and chipped nailpolish.

"You had a really different college experience than I did." Nick was watching him carefully.

"Well, we couldn't all spend every weekend at keggers with our frat buddies."

"Yeah." Nick's laugh was empty. "The frat house was certainly educational in teaching me how to play it straight."

Greg swung his legs up so that they were resting on Nick, making the porch swing move slightly. Nick ran his hand lightly over Greg's calves.

"You don't seem that straight to me, cowboy." Greg's voice was husky. "In fact, you seem downright queer."

Nick grinned, despite himself. "That's the single worst Texas accent I've ever heard. And I've heard some bad ones."

Greg's thumb slid over the condensation on his bottle. "I'm kinda serious, Nicky. I find it awe-inspiring that you come from what you do and you are who you are."

Nick shrugged. Greg looked at his profile; the one eye he could see glittering in the half-light.

"When we get back to Vegas," Greg said carefully, "can we move in together?"

Nick's head turned towards him. "What?"

"I love you, Nicky. I love the relationship we have. I love spending time with you." Greg laced his fingers through Nick's, hands slippery with moisture from his beer bottle. "Call me selfish, but I want more of it. I want to wake up with you every day, and go grocery shopping with you, and pick out an apartment with you, and make my life with you."

"Grocery shopping, Greggo? Is this so we have more in our cupboards than vodka, microbrews, peanut butter and tortilla chips?"

Greg blinked. "Is that a yes?"

Nick ran his hand up the inside of Greg's leg to his crotch. "It's a 'hell, yeah'. I love you, man." His voice shook slightly, like a sound engineer had applied reverb to it. "I totally fucking adore you."

* * *

Annie shut the door to the porch hastily behind her.

David looked up from his place at the table. "Aren't they still out there? Should I go find them?"

Annie reddened slightly. "Um, they're there. They were just smooching, so I figured I would give them a minute."

She raised her eyebrows at David's look. "What? We're having enchiladas and they can stand for a couple of minutes without ruining."

THE END

*****

Big thanks to everyone who reviewed. Huge thanks to Lily and Blatantly Jennifer for pointing out mistakes, which was super-helpful. Lily also deserves some kind of prize for reviewing every chapter.


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